Mark Booth

Resolved debris discs around a stars in the herschel DEBRIS survey

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 physical properties of dust grains, there is a degeneracy between disc radius and dust temperature that depends on the grain size distribution and optical properties. By resolving the disc we can measure the actual location of the dust. The launch of Herschel, with an angular resolution superior to previous far-infrared telescopes, allows us to spatially resolve more discs and locate the dust directly. Here we present the nine resolved discs around A stars between 20 and 40 pc observed by the DEBRIS survey. We use these data to investigate the disc radii by tting narrow ring models to images at 70, 100 and 160 m and by tting blackbodies to full spectral energy distributions. We do this with the aim of nding an improved way of estimating disc radii for unresolved systems. The ratio between the resolved and blackbody radii varies between 1 and 2.5. This ratio is inversely correlated with luminosity and any remaining discrepancies are most likely explained by dierences to the minimum size of grain in the size distribution or dierences in composition. We nd that three of the systems are well t by a narrow ring, two systems are borderline cases and the other four likely require wider or multiple rings to fully explain the observations, reecting the diversity of planetary systems.

Herschel imaging of 61 Vir: implications for the prevalence of debris in low-mass planetary systems

This paper describes Herschel observations of the nearby (8.5pc) G5V multi-exoplanet host star 61Vir at 70, 100, 160, 250, 350 and 500m carried out as part of the DEBRIS survey. These observations reveal emission that is significantly extended out to a distance of >15arcsec with a morphology that can be fitted by a nearly edge-on (77° inclination) radially broad (from 30au out to at least 100au) debris disc of fractional luminosity 2.7 × 10 -5, with two additional (presumably unrelated) sources nearby that become more prominent at longer wavelengths. Chance alignment with a background object seen at 1.4GHz provides potential for confusion, however, the stars 1.4arcsecyr -1 proper motion allows archival Spitzer 70m images to confirm that what we are interpreting as disc emission really is circumstellar. Although the exact shape of the discs inner edge is not well constrained, the region inside 30au must be significantly depleted in planetesimals. This is readily explained if there are additional planets outside those already known (i.e. in the 0.5-30au region), but is also consistent with collisional erosion. We also find tentative evidence that the presence of detectable debris around nearby stars correlates with the presence of the lowest mass planets that are detectable in current radial velocity surveys. Out of an unbiased sample of the nearest 60G stars, 11 are known to have planets, of which six (including 61Vir) have planets that are all less massive than Saturn, and four of these have evidence for debris. The debris towards one of these planet hosts (HD20794) is reported here for the first time. This fraction (4/6) is higher than that expected for nearby field stars (15per cent), and implies that systems that form low-mass planets are also able to retain bright debris discs. We suggest that this correlation could arise because such planetary systems are dynamically stable and include regions that are populated with planetesimals in the formation process where the planetesimals can remain unperturbed over Gyr time-scales.

RESOLVED IMAGING OF THE HR 8799 DEBRIS DISK WITH HERSCHEL

We present Herschel far-infrared and submillimeter maps of the debris disk associated with the HR 8799 planetary system. We resolve the outer disk emission at 70, 100, 160 and 250 µm and detect the disk at 350 and 500 µm. A smooth model explains the observed disk emission well. We observe no obvious clumps or asymmetries associated with the trapping of planetesimals that is a potential consequence of planetary migration in the system. We estimate that the disk eccentricity must be < 0.1. As in previous work by Su et al. (2009), we find a disk with three components: a warm inner component and two outer components, a planetesimal belt extending from 100 - 310 AU, with some flexibility (±10 AU) on the inner edge, and the external halo which extends to � 2000 AU. We measure the disk inclination to be 26 ± 3 ◦ from face-on at a position angle of 64 ◦ E of N, establishing that the disk is coplanar with the star and planets. The SED of the disk is well fit by blackbody grains whose semi-major axes lie within the planetesimal belt, suggesting an absence of small grains. The wavelength at which the spectrum steepens from blackbody, 47± 30 µm, however, is short compared to other A star debris disks, suggesting that there are atypically small grains likely populating the halo. The PACS longer wavelength data yield a lower disk color temperature than do MIPS data (24 and 70 µm), implying two distinct halo dust grain populations.

A DEBRIS Disk Around The Planet Hosting M-star GJ 581 Spatially Resolved with Herschel ⋆

Debris disks have been found primarily around intermediate and solar mass stars (spectral types A-K) but rarely around low mass M-type stars. We have spatially resolved a debris disk around the remarkable M3-type star GJ 581 hosting multiple planets using deep PACS images at 70, 100 and 160µm as part of the DEBRIS Program on the Herschel Space Observatory . This is the second spatially resolved debris disk found around an M-type star, after the one surrounding the young star AU Mic (12 Myr). However, GJ 581 is much older (2-8 Gyr), and is X-ray quiet in the ROSAT data. We fi t an axisymmetric model of the disk to the three PACS images and found that the best fit model is for a disk extending radially f rom 25± 12 AU to more than 60 AU. Such a cold disk is reminiscent of the Kuiper Belt but it surrounds a low mass star (0.3 M⊙) and its fractional dust luminosity Ldust/L∗ of∼ 10 −4 is much higher. The inclination limits of the disk found in our analysis make the masses of the planets small enough to ensure the long-term stability of the system according to some dynamical simulations. The disk is collisionally dominated down to submicron-sized grains and the dust cannot be expelled from the system by radiation or wind pressures because of the low luminosity and low X-ray luminosity of GJ 581. We suggest that the correlation between low-mass planets and debris disks recently found for G-type stars also applies to M-type stars. Finally, the known planets, of low masses and orbiting within 0.3 AU from the star, cannot dynamically perturb the disk over the age of the star, suggesting that an additional plane t exists at larger distance that is stirring the disk to reple nish the dust.

Does the presence of planets affect the frequency and properties of extrasolar Kuiper belts? Results from the Herschel DEBRIS and DUNES surveys

The study of the planet–debris disk connection can shed light on the formation and evolution of planetary systemsand may help “predict” the presence of planets around stars with certain disk characteristics. In preliminary analyses of subsamples of the Herschel DEBRIS and DUNES surveys, Wyatt et al. and Marshall et al. identified a tentative correlation between debris and the presence of low-mass planets. Here we use the cleanest possible sample out of these Herschel surveys to assess the presence of such a correlation, discarding stars without known ages, with ages <1Gyr, and with binary companions <100 AUto rule out possible correlations due to effects other than planet presence. In our resulting subsample of 204 FGK stars, we do not find evidence that debris disks are more common or more dusty around stars harboring high-mass or low-mass planets compared to a control sample without identified planets. There is no evidence either that the characteristic dust temperature of the debris disks around planet-bearing stars is any different from that in debris disks without identified planets, nor that debris disks are more or less common (or more or less dusty) around stars harboring multiple planets compared to singleplanet systems. Diverse dynamical histories may account for the lack of correlations. The data show a correlation between the presence of high-mass planets and stellar metallicity, but no correlation between the presence of lowmass planets or debris and stellar metallicity. Comparing the observed cumulative distribution of fractional luminosity to those expected from a Gaussian distribution in logarithmic scale, we find that a distribution centered on the solar system’s value fits the data well, while one centered at 10 times this value can be rejected. This is of interest in the context of future terrestrial planet detection and characterization because it indicates that there are good prospects for finding a large number of debris disk systems (i.e., with evidence of harboring planetesimals, the building blocks of planets) with exozodiacal emission low enough to be appropriate targets for an ATLASTtype mission to search for biosignatures.

Alignment in star-debris disc systems seen by Herschel

Many nearby main-sequence stars have been searched for debris using the far-infrared Herschel satellite, within the DEBRIS, DUNES and Guaranteed-Time Key Projects. We discuss here 11 stars of spectral types A–M where the stellar inclination is known and can be compared to that of the spatially resolved dust belts. The discs are found to be well aligned with the stellar equators, as in the case of the Sun’s Kuiper belt, and unlike many close-in planets seen in transit surveys. The ensemble of stars here can be fitted with a star–disc tilt of 10 ◦ . These

Spatially resolved imaging of the two-component η crv debris disk with Herschel

We present far-infrared and submillimeter images of the η Crv debris disk system obtained with Herschel and SCUBA-2, as well as Hubble Space Telescope visible and near-infrared coronagraphic images. In the 70 μm Herschel image, we clearly separate the thermal emission from the warm and cold belts in the system, find no evidence for a putative dust population located between them, and precisely determine the geometry of the outer belt. We also find marginal evidence for azimuthal asymmetries and a global offset of the outer debris ring relative to the central star. Finally, we place stringent upper limits on the scattered light surface brightness of the outer ring. Using radiative transfer modeling, we find that it is impossible to account for all observed properties of the system under the assumption that both rings contain dust populations with the same properties. While the outer belt is in reasonable agreement with the expectations of steady-state collisional cascade models, albeit with a minimum grain size that is four times larger than the blow-out size, the inner belt appears to contain copious amounts of small dust grains, possibly below the blow-out size. This suggests that the inner belt cannot result from a simple transport of grains from the outer belt and rather supports a more violent phenomenon as its origin. We also find that the emission from the inner belt has not declined over three decades, a much longer timescale than its dynamical timescale, which indicates that the belt is efficiently replenished.

Resolving the planetesimal belt of HR 8799 with ALMA

The star HR 8799 hosts one of the largest known debris discs and at least four giant planets. Previous observations have found evidence for a warm belt within the orbits of the planets, a cold planetesimal belt beyond their orbits and a halo of small grains. With the infrared data, it is hard to distinguish the planetesimal belt emission from that of the grains in the halo. With this in mind, the system has been observed with ALMA in band 6 (1.34 mm) using a compact array format. These observations allow the inner edge of the planetesimal belt to be resolved for the first time. A radial distribution of dust grains is fitted to the data using an MCMC method. The disc is best fitted by a broad ring between 145 +12 −12 au and 429

THE DEBRIS DISK AROUND γ DORADUS RESOLVED WITH HERSCHEL

We present observations of the debris disk around gamma Doradus, an F1V star, from the Herschel Key Programme DEBRIS (Disc Emission via Bias-free Reconnaissance in the Infrared/Submillimetre). The disk is well-resolved at 70, 100 and 160 micron, resolved along its major axis at 250 micron, detected but not resolved at 350 micron, and confused with a background source at 500 micron. It is one of our best resolved targets and we find it to have a radially broad dust distribution. The modelling of the resolved images cannot distinguish between two configurations: an arrangement of a warm inner ring at several AU (best-fit 4 AU) and a cool outer belt extending from ~55 to 400 AU or an arrangement of two cool, narrow rings at ~70 AU and ~190 AU. This suggests that any configuration between these two is also possible. Both models have a total fractional luminosity of ~10^{-5} and are consistent with the disk being aligned with the stellar equator. The inner edge of either possible configuration suggests that the most likely region to find planets in this system would be within ~55 AU of the star. A transient event is not needed to explain the warm dusts fractional luminosity.

The debris disc of solar analogue τ Ceti: Herschel observations and dynamical simulations of the proposed multiplanet system

τ Ceti is a nearby, mature G-type star very similar to our Sun, with a massive Kuiper Belt analogue and possible multiplanet system that has been compared to our Solar system. We present Herschel Space Observatory images of the debris disc, finding the disc is resolved at 70µm and 160µm, and marginally resolved at 250µm. The Herschel images and infrared photometry from the literature are best modelled using a wide dust annulus with an inner edge between1and10auandanouteredgeat ∼55au,inclinedfromface-onby35 ◦ ±10 ◦ ,andwith no significant azimuthal structure. We model the proposed tightly packed planetary system of five super-Earths and find that the innermost dynamically stable disc orbits are consistent with the inner edge found by the observations. The photometric modelling, however, cannot rule out a disc inner edge as close to the star as 1 au, though larger distances produce a better fit to the data. Dynamical modelling shows that the five-planet system is stable with the addition of a Neptune or smaller mass planet on an orbit outside 5 au, where the radial velocity data analysis would not have detected a planet of this mass.