New Debris Disks around Nearby Main-Sequence Stars: Impact on the Direct Detection of Planets

By C. Beichman, G. Bryden, K. Stapelfeldt, T. Gautier, K. Grogan, M. Shao, Thirukumaran Velusamy, S. Lawler, M. Blaylock, G. Rieke and 7 more. 2006

155 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Using the MIPS instrument on Spitzer, we have searched for infrared excesses around a sample of 82 stars, mostly F, G, and K main-sequence field stars, along with a small number of nearby M stars. These stars were selected for their suitability for future observations by a variety of planet-finding techniques. These observations provide information on the asteroidal and cometary material orbiting these stars, data that can be correlated with any planets that may eventually be found. We have found significant excess 70 μm emission toward 12 stars. Combined with an earlier study, we find an overall 70 μm excess detection rate of 13% ± 3% for mature cool stars. Unlike the trend for planets to be found preferentially toward stars with high metallicity, the incidence of debris disks is uncorrelated with metallicity. By newly identifying four of these stars as having weak 24 μm excesses (fluxes ~10% above the stellar photosphere), we confirm a trend found in earlier studies wherein a weak 24 μm excess is associated with a strong 70 μm excess. Interestingly, we find no evidence for debris disks around 23 stars cooler than K1, a result that is bolstered by a lack of excess around any of the 38 K1-M6 stars in two companion surveys. One motivation for this study is the fact that strong zodiacal emission can make it hard or impossible to detect planets directly with future observatories such as the Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF). The observations reported here exclude a few stars with very high levels of emission, >1000 times the emission of our zodiacal cloud, from direct planet searches. For the remainder of the sample, we set relatively high limits on dust emission from asteroid belt counterparts.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c224f85545b52943b632c31faa9185b38dd04c8c

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Citations in the corpus

Debris Disks around Sun-like Stars (2007, methodology): “…orbiting at 0.752 and 1.19 AU (Mayor et al. 2004; Lee et al. 2006). h This star has a known planet orbiting at 0.484 AU (Butler et al. 2006). j Beichman et al. (2006a) found no excess for this star in IRS spectra out to 35 m, but calculate a fractional luminosity of 2:6 ; 10 5 based on 70 m…”
Long-Term Collisional Evolution of Debris Disks (2007, methodology): “The large Guaranteed Time Observer (GTO) survey of FGK stars contains another 64 stars, where ages are available (Beichman et al. 2005, 2006a; Bryden et al. 2006).”
FORMATION AND EVOLUTION OF PLANETARY SYSTEMS: PROPERTIES OF DEBRIS DUST AROUND SOLAR-TYPE STARS (2008, background): “Siegler et al. (2007) compiled various Spitzer 24µm surveys of FGK stars and found a decline in the 24µm excess fraction with age similar to that observed in the FEPS sample.”
A Decreased Probability of Habitable Planet Formation around Low-Mass Stars (2007, background): “The lack of a correlation between the presence of debris disks and the metallicity of the parent star (Greaves et al. 2006; Beichman et al. 2006; Moro-Mart́ın et al. 2007), unlike the correlation known for exogiant planets (Gonzalez 1997, Santos et al. , Fischer & Valenti 2005), also supports the…”
The SDSS–2MASS–WISE 10-dimensional stellar colour locus (2014, background): “For example, Beichman et al. (2006) determined the meanK− [24] color as a function of spectral type for nearby FGKM stars in order to search for excess emission from disks.”
Variations on Debris Disks: Icy Planet Formation at 30-150 AU for 1-3 M☉ Main-Sequence Stars (2008, methodology): “Current samples include stars with spectral types AYM and ages 5 Myr to 10 Gyr (e.g., Chen et al. 2005; Kim et al. 2005; Rieke et al. 2005; Beichman et al. 2006; Su et al. 2006; Hillenbrand et al. 2008).”
Debris Disks in Main-Sequence Binary Systems (2006, background): “Debris Disks in Binary Systems in Other Samples We look for binary systems in the Bryden et al. (2006), Beichman et al. (2006), and Su et al. (2006) samples to extend our results.”
Debris disks as signposts of terrestrial planet formation (2011, background): “These values are broadly consistent with the fluxes detected around solar-type stars with observed excesses at 24 and 70 μm (Habing et al. 2001; Beichman et al. 2006; Moór et al. 2006; Trilling et al. 2008; Hillenbrand et al. 2008; Carpenter et al. 2009; Gáspár et al. 2009), although our stable…”
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, background): “For example, Beichman et al. (2006) claim that they did not detect in their more limited survey any debris disks around 23 stars later than K1, ‘‘a result that is bolstered by a lack of excess around any of the 38 K1–M6 stars in two companion surveys.’’”
Debris disc stirring by secular perturbations from giant planets (2009, methodology): “We take 57 planet-hosting stars with publishedSpitzer/MIPS photometry (Beichman et al. 2006; Moro-Martı́n et al. 2007; Trilling et al. 2008; Backman et al. 2009).”
NEW DEBRIS DISKS AROUND YOUNG, LOW-MASS STARS DISCOVERED WITH THE SPITZER SPACE TELESCOPE (2009, unknown): “More sensitive observations with the Spitzer Space Telescope and ground-based efforts continue to identify a relative lack of bright 70 µm excesses (F70/F∗&2–10) around K and M stars older than ∼50 Myr (Trilling et al. 2008; Gautier et al. 2008; Beichman et al. 2006a).”