Related papers: Post-Main Sequence Evolution of Debris Discs
The Galactic centre hosts, according to observations, a number of early-type stars. About one half of those which are orbiting the central supermassive black hole on orbits with projected radii $\gtrsim$ 0.03 pc form a coherently rotating…
The formation of galactic discs and the efficiency of star formation within them are issues central to our understanding of galaxy formation. We have developed a detailed and versatile model of disc formation which combines the strengths of…
The evolution of central stars of planetary nebulae was so far documented in just a few cases. However, spectra collected a few decades ago may provide a good reference for studying the evolution of central stars using the emission line…
Debris discs are dusty belts of planetesimals around main-sequence stars, similar to the asteroid and Kuiper belts in our solar system. The planetesimals cannot be observed directly, yet they produce detectable dust in mutual collisions.…
The frequency of discs around young stars, a key parameter for understanding planet formation, is most readily determined in young stellar clusters where many relatively coeval stars are located in close proximity. Observational studies…
Post-asymptotic giant branch (post-AGB) stars with discs are all binaries. Many of these binaries have orbital periods between 100 and 1000 days so cannot have avoided mass transfer between the AGB star and its companion, likely through a…
Galaxy evolution is in transition from an early universe dominated by hierarchical clustering to a future dominated by secular processes. These result from interactions involving collective phenomena such as bars, oval disks, spiral…
Based on VLT/FORS spectroscopy and HST/ACS imaging, we have constructed a sample of ~200 field spiral galaxies that cover redshifts up to z~1. Such a large data set allows to study the evolution of fundamental galaxy parameters like…
The timescales on which astronomical dust grows remain poorly understood, with important consequences for our understanding of processes like circumstellar disk evolution and planet formation.A number of post-asymptotic giant branch stars…
Debris disks are optically thin, almost gas-free dusty disks observed around a significant fraction of main-sequence stars older than about 10 Myr. Since the circumstellar dust is short-lived, the very existence of these disks is considered…
Debris belts on the periphery of planetary systems, encompassing the region occupied by planetary orbits, are massive analogues of the Solar system's Kuiper belt. They are detected by thermal emission of dust released in collisions amongst…
We present results from the earliest observations of DEBRIS, a Herschel Key Programme to conduct a volume- and flux-limited survey for debris discs in A-type through M-type stars. PACS images (from chop/nod or scan-mode observations) at 100…
Protoplanetary discs are crucial to understanding how planets form and evolve, but these objects are subject to the vagaries of the birth environments of their host stars. In particular, photoionising radiation from massive stars has been…
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…
Increasing observations of white dwarf atmospheric pollution and disrupting planetesimals is driving increased studies into the fate of exo-asteroids around post-main-sequence stars. Planetesimal populations in the Solar System which are…
Debris disks can be seen as the left-overs of giant planet formation and the possible nurseries of rocky planets. While M-type stars out-number more massive stars we know very little about the time evolution of their circumstellar disks at…
We review the properties of massive star evolution in different environments, where the major environmental factor is metallicity. Comparisons between evolutionary models and observations of massive OB, WR stars and related objects are…
The radial structure of debris discs can encode important information about their dynamical and collisional history. In this paper we present a 3-phase analytical model to analyse the collisional evolution of solids in debris discs,…
Two types of dust disks around white dwarfs (WDs) have been reported: small dust disks around cool metal-rich WDs consisting of tidally disrupted asteroids, and a large dust disk around the hot central WD of the Helix planetary nebula (PN)…
Context: Field stars are not always single stars, but can often be found in bound double systems. Since binary frequencies in the birth places of stars, young embedded clusters, are sometimes even higher than on average the question arises…