The problem of detecting Jovian-sized planets orbiting White Dwarf stars is considered .
Significant IR excesses result from warm Jupiters orbiting a White Dwarf of T _ { eff } = 10000 K at a distance of \sim 10 ^ { 3 } White Dwarf radii ( corresponding to \sim 10 ^ { 2 } Jupiter radii or a few tenths of an AU ) with an orbital period of \sim 100 days .
Such a planet will have a 10 micron flux density at its Wien peak that is comparable to the emission of the White Dwarf at that wavelength .
Although the White Dwarf is much hotter than the planet , the planet will have peak brightness at the IR , well into the Rayleigh-Jeans tail of the White Dwarf , plus Jovians are about 10 times larger than White Dwarfs , so there is a substantial gain in the planet to star brightness contrast as compared to planets around Main Sequence stars .
In the solar neighborhood , there are 51 White Dwarf stars within 13 pc of the Sun .
At 10 pc , the IR flux density of “ warm ” Jupiters ( a few hundred Kelvin ) will fall in the range 10–100 micro-Jansky which should be observable with SIRTF .