Related papers: On the Relationship Between Debris Disks and Plane…
Over the past 10 years abundant evidence has emerged that many (if not all) stars are born with circumstellar disks. Understanding the evolution of post-accretion disks can provide strong constraints on theories of planet formation and…
In order to link infrared observations of dust formed during planet formation in debris disks to mid-infrared spectroscopic data of planetary materials from differentiated terrestrial and asteroidal bodies, we obtained absorption spectra of…
High levels of exozodiacal dust are observed around a growing number of main sequence stars. The origin of such dust is not clear, given that it has a short lifetime against both collisions and radiative forces. Even a collisional cascade…
The main-sequence solar-type star HD69830 has an unusually large amount of dusty debris orbiting close to three planets found via the radial velocity technique. In order to explore the dynamical interaction between the dust and planets, we…
A significant fraction of nearby young moving group members harbor circumstellar debris dust disks. Due to their proximity and youth, these disks are attractive targets for studying the early evolution of debris dust and planetesimal belts.…
We report the results of a ${\sim}4$-year direct imaging survey of 104 stars to resolve and characterize circumstellar debris disks in scattered light as part of the Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey. We targeted nearby (${\lesssim}150$…
Irregular satellites are the minor bodies found orbiting all four Solar System giant planets, with large semi-major axes, eccentricities, and inclinations. Previous studies have determined that the Solar System's irregular satellites are…
Debris disks are the natural by-products of the planet formation process. Scattered or polarized light observations are mostly sensitive to small dust grains that are released from the grinding down of bigger planetesimals. High angular…
A clear understanding of the chemical processing of matter, as it is transferred from a molecular cloud to a planetary system, depends heavily on knowledge of the physical conditions endured by gas and dust as these accrete onto a disk and…
More than a thousand warm debris disks have been detected as infrared excess at mid-infrared wavelengths, and their frequencies have been obtained for various spectral types of stars. However, the dependence of the frequencies on spectral…
We place lower limits on the obliquities between debris disks and their host stars for 31 systems by comparing their disk and stellar inclinations. While previous studies did not find evidence for misalignment, we identify 6 systems with…
We examine the dust properties of a nearby distance-limited sample of early type galaxies using the WFPC2 of the Hubble Space Telescope. Dust is detected in 29 out of 67 galaxies (43%), including 12 with small nuclear dusty disks. In a…
Asteroids and comets (planetesimals) are created in gas- and dust-rich protoplanetary discs. The presence of these planetesimals around main-sequence stars is usually inferred from the detection of excess continuum emission at infrared…
(abridged) Thus far our impressions regarding the evolutionary time scales for young circumstellar disks have been based on small number statistics. Over the past decade, however, in addition to precision study of individual star/disk…
We discuss the results of laboratory measurements and theoretical models concerning the aggregation of dust in protoplanetary disks, as the initial step toward planet formation. Small particles easily stick when they collide and form…
(Abridged) The radii of debris disks and the sizes of their dust grains are tracers of the formation mechanisms and physical processes operating in these systems. We use a sample of 34 debris disks spatially resolved in various Herschel…
HR 8799 is a four planet system that also hosts a debris disk. By numerically integrating both planets and a planetesimal disk, we find interactions between an exterior planetesimal disk and the planets can influence the lifetime of the…
The amount of dust present in circumstellar disks is expected to steadily decrease with age due to the growth from micron-sized particles to planetesimals and planets. Mature circumstellar disks, however, can be observed to contain…
Debris rings of dust are found around young luminous stars such as HR4796A and HD141569. Some of these entities have sharp edges and gaps which have been interpreted as evidence for the presence of shepherding and embedded planets. Here we…
The onset of planet formation is actively under debate. Recent mass measurements of disks around protostars suggest an early start of planet formation in the Class 0/I disks. However, dust substructures, one possible signature of forming…