Related papers: Terrestrial Zone Debris Disk Candidates in h and c…

Planets are thought to form from dust and gas in protoplanetary disks, and debris disks are the remnants of planet formation. Aged a few Myr up to a few Gyr, debris disks have lost their primordial gas, and their dust is produced by…

We conducted a survey for infrared excess emission from 16 nearby main sequence shell stars using the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer (MIPS) on the Spitzer Space Telescope. Shell stars are early-type stars with narrow absorption…

Deep Keck/NIRC2 HK'L' observations of the Arches cluster near the Galactic center reveal a significant population of near-infrared excess sources. We combine the L'-band excess observations with K'-band proper motions, to confirm cluster…

Since giant planets scatter planetesimals within a few tidal radii of their orbits, the locations of existing planetesimal belts indicate regions where giant planet formation failed in bygone protostellar disks. Infrared observations of…

Young stars with masses 2-8 Suns, called the Herbig Ae and Be stars, often show a near-infrared excess too large to explain with a hydrostatically-supported circumstellar disk of gas and dust. At the same time the accretion flow carrying…

We describe calculations for the formation of icy planets and debris disks at 30-150 AU around 1-3 solar mass stars. Debris disk formation coincides with the formation of planetary systems. As protoplanets grow, they stir leftover…

We examine the mid-infrared fluxes and spectral energy distributions for metal-poor stars with iron abundances [Fe/H] $\lesssim-5$, as well as two CEMP-no stars, to eliminate the possibility that their low metallicities are related to the…

We present Spitzer Space Telescope photometry of six short-period polars, EF Eri, V347 Pav, VV Pup, V834 Cen, GG Leo, and MR Ser. We have combined the Spitzer Infrared Array Camera (3.6 -8.0 microns) data with the 2MASS J, H, K_s photometry…

Warm debris disks around main-sequence stars trace late-stage terrestrial planet formation. Motivated by the need for systematic searches of such systems, we identify debris disk candidates around FGK stars within 150 pc by combining a…

We present detections of numerous 10-20 micron H2O emission lines from two protoplanetary disks around the T Tauri stars AS 205A and DR Tau, obtained using the InfraRed Spectrograph on the Spitzer Space Telescope. Follow-up 3-5 micron…

The presence of dusty debris around main sequence stars denotes the existence of planetary systems. Such debris disks are often identified by the presence of excess continuum emission at infrared and (sub-)millimetre wavelengths, with…

We present models for the formation of terrestrial planets, and the collisional evolution of debris disks, in planetary systems that contain multiple unstable gas giants. We previously showed that the dynamics of the giant planets…

We present our results from a mid-infrared interferometric survey targeted at the planet-forming region in the circumstellar disks around low- and intermediate-mass young stars. Our sample consist of 82 objects, including T Tauri stars,…

We have obtained Spitzer Space Telescope IRS 5.5 - 35 micron spectra of 59 main sequence stars that possess IRAS 60 micron excess. The spectra of five objects possess spectral features that are well-modeled using micron-sized grains and…

We analyze Spitzer IRS spectra of 110 B-, A-, F-, and G-type stars with optically thin infrared excess in the Scorpius-Centaurus (ScoCen) OB association. The age of these stars ranges from 11-17 Myr. We fit the infrared excesses observed in…

The Kepler Mission recently identified 997 systems hosting candidate extrasolar planets, many of which are super-Earths. Realizing these planetary systems are candidates to host extrasolar asteroid belts, we use mid-infrared data from the…

V488 Persei is the most extreme debris disk known in terms of the fraction of the stellar luminosity it intercepts and reradiates. The infrared output of its disk is extremely variable, similar in this respect to the most variable disk…

High-precision interferometric observations of six early-type main sequence stars known to harbour cold debris discs have been obtained in the near-infrared K band with the FLUOR instrument at the CHARA Array. The measured squared…

Two decades ago "transitional disks" described spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of T Tauri stars with small near-IR excesses, but significant mid- and far-IR excesses. Many inferred this indicated dust-free holes in disks, possibly…

We report spectra obtained with the Spitzer Space Telescope in the wavelength range between 14 microns and 35 microns of 19 nearby main-sequence stars with infrared excesses. The six stars with strong dust emission show no recognizable…