Frequency of Debris Disks around Solar-Type Stars: First Results from a Spitzer MIPS Survey

By G. Bryden, C. Beichman, D. Trilling, G. Rieke, E. K. Holmes, S. Lawler, K. Stapelfeldt, M. Werner, Thomas N. Gautier, M. Blaylock and 3 more. 2005

220 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We have searched for infrared excesses around a well-defined sample of 69 FGK main-sequence field stars. These stars were selected without regard to their age, metallicity, or any previous detection of IR excess; they have a median age of ~4 Gyr. We have detected 70 μm excesses around seven stars at the 3 σ confidence level. This extra emission is produced by cool material (<100 K) located beyond 10 AU, well outside the "habitable zones" of these systems and consistent with the presence of Kuiper Belt analogs with ~100 times more emitting surface area than in our own planetary system. Only one star, HD 69830, shows excess emission at 24 μm, corresponding to dust with temperatures ≳300 K located inside of 1 AU. While debris disks with Ldust/L⋆ ≥ 10-3 are rare around old FGK stars, we find that the disk frequency increases from 2% ± 2% for Ldust/L⋆ ≥ 10-4 to 12% ± 5% for Ldust/L⋆ ≥ 10-5. This trend in the disk luminosity distribution is consistent with the estimated dust in our solar system being within an order of magnitude greater or less than the typical level around similar nearby stars. Although there is no correlation of IR excess with metallicity or spectral type, there is a weak correlation with stellar age, with stars younger than a gigayear more likely to have excess emission.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

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Citations in the corpus

Discovery of Two T Dwarf Companions with the Spitzer Space Telescope (2006, methodology): “A debris disk was recently detected around HN Peg A at 30 and 70 µm by the Spitzer Space Telescope (Bryden et al. 2006; Beichman et al. 2006), which tends to further support the youth of this star.”
Characterization of Dusty Debris Disks: The IRAS and Hipparcos Catalogs (2006, background): “Using heterogeneous samples, Smith et al. (2006) and Bryden et al. (2006) also reported about 10% of stars show dust excess in the MIPS 70 m band, but below IRAS sensitivity.”
Absolute Calibration and Characterization of the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer. I. The Stellar Calibrator Sample and the 24 μm Calibration (2007, methodology): “For example, the MIPS 24 µm channel allows measurement of infrared excesses around stars with lower effective temperatures and/or lower-mass debris disks than previously possible (e.g., Rieke et al. 2005; Bryden et al. 2006).”
Absolute Calibration and Characterization of the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer. II. 70 μm Imaging (2007, background): “…at 70 µm as they enable a number of science investigations including the detection and study of cold disks around stars (e.g., Kim et al. 2005; Bryden et al. 2006), imaging of warm dust in galaxies (e.g., Calzetti et al. 2005; Dale et al. 2005; Gordon et al. 2006), and investigation of…”
Transience of Hot Dust around Sun-like Stars (2006, methodology): “Four surveys have searched for hot dust around sun-like stars (main sequence F, G or K stars) by looking for a 25 µm flux in excess of photospheric levels using IRAS (Gaidos 1999), ISO (Laureijs et al. 2002) and Spitzer (Hines et al. 2006; Bryden et al. 2006).”
FORMATION AND EVOLUTION OF PLANETARY SYSTEMS: PROPERTIES OF DEBRIS DUST AROUND SOLAR-TYPE STARS (2008, background): “These data are consistent with the solar system debris luminosity being “typical” (c.f. Bryden et al. 2006).”
The Spitzer Survey of the Small Magellanic Cloud: S3MC Imaging and Photometry in the Mid- and Far-Infrared Wave Bands (2006, background): “Recent observations, however, find that this deficit of giant planets does not translate into a deficit of debris disks (Greaves et al. 2006; Bryden et al. 2006).”
Debris Disks in Main-Sequence Binary Systems (2006, methodology): “Only two old A stars (x 9.1) in the Su et al. (2006) sample have excesses close to this large, and no old stars in the Bryden et al. (2006) FGK sample do.”
Five Planets Orbiting 55 Cancri (2007, unknown): “Spitzer Space Telescope results for 55 Cnc by Bryden et al. (2006) show that the observed 24 and 70 micron flux densities are comparable to the predicted brightness of the stellar photosphere, indicating no infrared excess above the errors.”
Nearby Debris Disk Systems with High Fractional Luminosity Reconsidered (2006, background): “…is a growing list of debris disk systems that have been discovered by the sensitive detectors of the Spitzer Space Telescope (Beichman et al. 2005a; Bryden et al. 2006; Chen et al. 2005a, 2005b; Kim et al. 2005; Low et al. 2005; Meyer et al. 2004; Stauffer et al. 2005; Uzpen et al. 2005), and one…”
Debris Disks around Sun-like Stars (2007, unknown): “Bryden et al. (2006) found that the excess rate is around 15% for stars of mass and age similar to our Sun (for a sample of 69 stars).”
The Complete Census of 70 μm-Bright Debris Disks within “The Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems” Spitzer Legacy Survey of Sun-like Stars (2007, methodology): “Four sources, HD 17925, HD 72905, HD 202917, and HD 216803, were observed at 70 m not by FEPS but instead by the GTO program described by Bryden et al. (2006), who employ the same observing strategy as is standard for FEPS; the data were obtained from the Spitzer archive and processed using…”
Debris disks as signposts of terrestrial planet formation (2011, background): “…stellar metallicity and the fraction of stars with planets (Gonzalez 1997; Santos et al. 2001; Fischer & Valenti 2005) does not hold for the current sample of debris disks, whose presence is metallicityindependent (Beichman et al. 2006; Greaves et al. 2006; Bryden et al. 2006; Kóspál et al. 2009).”
NEW DEBRIS DISKS AROUND YOUNG, LOW-MASS STARS DISCOVERED WITH THE SPITZER SPACE TELESCOPE (2009, unknown): “Debris disks can persist for stars older than ∼1 Gyr around A,F, and G-type stars (Trilling et al. 2008; Meyer et al. 2007; Su et al. 2006; Bryden et al. 2006; Rieke et al. 2005).”