Related papers: Extra-Solar Kuiper Belt Dust Disks
Debris discs are evidence of the ongoing destructive collisions between planetesimals, and their presence around stars also suggests that planets exist in these systems. In this paper, we present submillimetre images of the thermal emission…
[Abridged] Debris discs around main-sequence stars indicate the presence of larger rocky bodies. The components of the nearby binary aCentauri have higher than solar metallicities, which is thought to promote giant planet formation. We aim…
Gaps in protoplanetary disks have long been hailed as signposts of planet formation. However, a direct link between exoplanets and disks remains hard to identify. We present a large sample study of ALMA disk surveys of nearby star-forming…
In circumstellar discs, collisional grinding of planetesimals produces second-generation dust. While it remains unclear whether this ever becomes a major component of the total dust content, the presence of such dust, and potentially the…
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…
The $\textit{Herschel}$ DEBRIS, DUNES and GT programmes observed 37 exoplanet host stars within 25 pc at 70, 100 and 160 $\mu$m with the sensitivity to detect far-infrared excess emission at flux density levels only an order of magnitude…
We investigate whether the tentative correlation between planets and debris discs which has been previously identified can be confirmed at high significance. We compile a sample of 201 stars with known planets and existing far infrared…
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…
The Nice model of Gomes et al. (2005) suggests that the migration of the giant planets caused a planetesimal clearing event which led to the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB) at 880 Myr. Here we investigate the IR emission from the Kuiper belt…
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…
Mineralogical studies of silicate features emitted by dust grains in protoplanetary disks and Solar System bodies can shed light on the progress of planet formation. The significant fraction of crystalline material in comets, chondritic…
We still do not understand how planets form, or why extra-solar planetary systems are so different from our own solar system. But the last few years have dramatically changed our view of the discs of gas and dust around young stars.…
While most debris disks consist of dust with little or no gas, a fraction has significant amounts of gas detected via emission lines of CO, ionized carbon, and/or atomic oxygen. Almost all such gaseous debris disks known are around A-type…
Infrared spectra from the Spitzer Space Telescope (SSC) of many debris disks are well fit with a single black body temperature which suggest clearings within the disk. We assume that inside the clearing orbital instability due to planets…
Transition disks have dust-depleted inner regions and may represent an intermediate step of an on-going disk dispersal process, where planet formation is probably in progress. Recent millimetre observations of transition disks reveal…
While detecting low mass exoplanets at tens of au is beyond current instrumentation, debris discs provide a unique opportunity to study the outer regions of planetary systems. Here we report new ALMA observations of the 80-200 Myr old Solar…
The Debris Disk Explorer (DDX) is a proposed balloon-borne investigation of debris disks around nearby stars. Debris disks are analogs of the Asteroid Belt (mainly rocky) and Kuiper Belt (mainly icy) in our Solar System. DDX will measure…
Debris discs are analogues to our own Kuiper belt around main-sequence stars and are therefore referred to as exoKuiper belts. They have been resolved at high angular resolution at wavelengths spanning the optical to the…
Context: Gas is now detected in many extrasolar systems around mature stars aged between 10 Myr to $\sim$ 1 Gyr with planetesimal belts. Gas in these mature disks is thought to be released from planetesimals and has been modelled using a…
Planet-forming disks turn from gas-rich, massive disks made of dust and gas into planetary systems containing only small amounts dust produced by collisions between smaller planetary objects like planetesimals, asteroids, or comets.…