Related papers: Five New Post-Main-Sequence Debris Disks with Gase…

Debris disc analysis and modelling provide crucial information about the structure and the processes at play in extrasolar planetary systems. In binary systems, this issue is more complex because the disc should in addition respond to the…

Debris discs reveal the architectures and dynamical histories of planetary systems. Sub-millimetre observations trace large dust grains within debris discs, revealing their bulk properties. Debris discs have so far only been detected around…

In our solar system, Mars-sized protoplanets frequently collided with each other during the last stage of terrestrial planet formation called the giant impact stage. Giant impacts eject a large amount of material from the colliding…

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…

We find that the initial dust masses in planetary debris disks are correlated with the metallicities of their central stars. We compiled a large sample of systems, including Spitzer, the Herschel DUNES and DEBRIS surveys, and WISE debris…

More than a decade after astronomers realized that disrupted planetary material likely pollutes the surfaces of many white dwarf stars, the discovery of transiting debris orbiting the white dwarf WD 1145+017 has opened the door to new…

The presence of debris disks around young main sequence stars hints at the existence and structure of planetary systems. Millimeter-wavelength observations probe large grains that trace the location of planetesimal belts. The FEPS…

Nearly all known white dwarf planetary systems contain detectable rocky debris in the stellar photosphere. A glaring exception is the young and still evolving white dwarf WD J0914+1914, which instead harbours a giant planet and a disc of…

This is a short and rather narrative summary of our ongoing efforts in identifying white dwarfs with gaseous debris disks, and developing an understanding of the structure and origin of these disks.

Debris disk is a catch-all term that can be used to refer to any component of a planetary system which is not an actual planet. In the Solar System this refers to the asteroids and comets in the Asteroid and Kuiper belts as well as the dust…

The photospheres of some white dwarfs are "polluted" by accretion of material from their surrounding planetary debris. White dwarfs with dust disks are often heavily polluted and high-resolution spectroscopic observations of these systems…

We have observed nearly 200 FGK stars at 24 and 70 microns with the Spitzer Space Telescope. We identify excess infrared emission, including a number of cases where the observed flux is more than 10 times brighter than the predicted…

Recent advances in astronomical instrumentation mean that we are now able to image the thermal emission from the disks of dust around main sequence stars that may be the fossil remnants of planetary formation. These observations imply that…

Optically thin dusty disks around Main Sequence stars consist of debris from catastrophic collisions or from low erosion of long-lived planetesimals. Resolved observations of dusty disks have systematically evidenced asymmetries and annular…

Post-asymptotic giant branch (post-AGB) binaries are surrounded by massive disks of gas and dust that are similar to protoplanetary disks around young stars. We assembled a catalog of all known Galactic post-AGB binaries with disks. We…

Models of terrestrial planet formation predict that the final stages of planetary assembly, lasting tens of millions of years beyond the dispersal of young protoplanetary disks, are dominated by planetary collisions. It is through these…

Debris disks around young main-sequence stars often have gaps and cavities which for a long time have been interpreted as possibly being caused by planets. In recent years, several giant planet discoveries have been made in systems hosting…

Although discs of dust and gas have been observed orbiting white dwarfs, the origin of this circumstellar matter is uncertain. We hypothesize that the in-situ breakup of small bodies such as asteroids spun to fission during the giant branch…

Debris disks are believed to be related to planetesimals left over around stars after planet formation has ceased. The frequency of debris disks around M-dwarfs which account for 70% of the stars in the Galaxy is unknown while constrains…

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…