Related papers: Diagnosing Circumstellar Debris Disks
Debris disks around main-sequence stars are believed to derive from planetesimal populations that have accreted at early epochs and survived possible planet formation processes. While debris disks must contain solids in a broad range of…
The number of stars that are known to have debris disks is greater than that of stars known to harbour planets. These disks are detected because dust is created in the destruction of planetesimals in the disks much in the same way that dust…
The cross section of material in debris discs is thought to be dominated by the smallest grains that can still stay in bound orbits despite the repelling action of stellar radiation pressure. Thus the minimum (and typical) grain size…
Aims. We analyze whether the effects of secular perturbations, originating from a substellar companion, on the dust dynamics in a debris disk can be investigated with spatially resolved observations. Methods. We numerically simulated the…
The mass of solids in a young circumstellar disc may be the key factor in its efficiency in building planetesimals and planetary cores, and dust observed around young T Tauri and Herbig Ae stars can be used as a proxy for this initial solid…
Two basic routes for planetesimal formation have been proposed over the last few decades. One is a classical "slow-growth" scenario. Another one is particle concentration models, in which small pebbles are concentrated locally and then…
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…
We present millimeter imaging observations in the 1200 micron continuum of the disk around beta Pictoris. With the 25 arcsec beam, the beta Pic disk is unresolved perpendicularly to the disk plane (< 10 arcsec), but slightly resolved in the…
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…
Debris disks offer valuable insights into the latest stages of circumstellar disk evolution, and can possibly help us to trace the outcomes of planetary formation processes. In the age range 10 to 100\,Myr, most of the gas is expected to…
The dust measured in debris disks traces the position of planetesimal belts. In our Solar System, we are also able to measure the largest planetesimals directly and can extrapolate down to make an estimate of the dust. The zodiacal dust…
Planetesimal belts are invoked to explain the prolonged existence of debris disks. Important parameters to model their collisional evolution and to compute the dust production rate are the intrinsic probability of collision $P_i$ and the…
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…
Dust constitutes only about one percent of the mass of circumstellar disks, yet it is of crucial importance for the modeling of planet formation, disk chemistry, radiative transfer and observations. The initial growth of dust from…
The majority of debris discs discovered so far have only been detected through infrared excess emission above stellar photospheres. While disc properties can be inferred from unresolved photometry alone under various assumptions for the…
Main sequence stars are commonly surrounded by debris disks, composed of cold dust continuously replenished by a reservoir of undetected dust-producing planetesimals. In a planetary system with a belt of planetesimals (like the Solar…
Several hundred stars older than 10 million years have been observed to have infrared excesses. These observations are explained by dust grains formed by the collisional fragmentation of hidden planetesimals. Such dusty planetesimal discs…
(abridged) Debris disks around main sequence stars are produced by the erosion and evaporation of unseen parent bodies. AU Microscopii (GJ 803) is a compelling object to study in the context of disk evolution across different spectral…
If planetesimal formation is an efficient process, as suggested by several models involving gravitational collapse of pebble clouds, then, before long, a significant part of the primordial dust mass should be absorbed in many km sized…
Context. Circumstellar disks are known to contain a significant mass in dust ranging from micron to centimeter size. Meteorites are evidence that individual grains of those sizes were collected and assembled into planetesimals in the young…