Questions about the "Ancient" planet in M4

As much as I enjoy reading about new planetary systems I'm having a hard
time believing that this object really is a planet, since it's in such
a metal poor globular cluster.

Before calling it a planet, shouldn't these possibilities be excluded?

1) The WD, pulsar and object are a forground system (easily discounted,
but still a possibility)

2) This object could be a pulsar "planet" created by whatever method
forms the "planets" detected around some pulsars. This process of
planetary formation is obviously different from the process that makes
normal planetary systems around normal stars.

3) This object could be the core of a Brown Dwarf or a low mass M Dwarf
that was ablated by the pulsar earlier in their history.

4) Similar to the above, this object is the core of a BD or M star that
was ablated to a 2.5J mass object at some point, ejected into the
general globular cluster population and later captured by the WD and
pulsar pair.

As far as I understand it, a planet is a sub stellar object formed
_mainly _ by accretion of dust and gas (maybe a combination of
accretion and gravitational collapse for the larger planteray masses).
Has the definition of a planet been changed to encompass any object
smaller than a BD, regardless of how it formed?

Frank

--
Frank Henriquez Programmer/Analyst Jules Stein Eye Institute, UCLA
http://www.bol.ucla.edu/~frank/index.htm

Constantine Thomas wrote:
Why does the subdwarf have to
encounter a *pair* of stars - why not just encounter a solo neutron
star?

If the subdwarf encounters a lone neutron star it will almost certainly
not go into orbit around it. For capture to occur, there must be a third
body to carry off the excess energy so that subdwarf is left in a bound
orbit.

Paul

Constantine Thomas wrote:
Why does the subdwarf have to
encounter a *pair* of stars - why not just encounter a solo neutron
star?

If the subdwarf encounters a lone neutron star it will almost certainly
not go into orbit around it. For capture to occur, there must be a third
body to carry off the excess energy so that subdwarf is left in a bound
orbit.

Paul