Resolved Millimeter-Wavelength Observations of Debris Disks around Sun-like Stars
Abstract
The presence of debris disks around young main sequence stars hints at the structure of hidden planetary systems. Spatially resolved observations are crucial to characterize the structure of the dust disk. The FEPS (Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems) Spitzer Legacy survey of nearby young solar analogues yielded a sample of five stars with millimeter flux excesses suitable for interferometric follow-up. We present observations with the Submillimeter Array (SMA) and the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA) at ~2 arcsec resolution that spatially resolve the debris disks around five nearby ( 50 pc) young solar analogues. Three of the five disks are spatially resolved for the first time by these observations. We simultaneously model the broad-band photometric data and spatially resolved millimeter visibilities of the systems to constrain both the dust temperatures and disk morphologies. We fit for basic structural parameters, including the inner radius and width of the debris ring, the total mass of the disk, and the characteristic dust grain size. We inspect the properties of the sample in order to gain insight into the range of morphologies of young planetary systems around Sun-like stars, and place the dust observations in context by comparing them with the Booth et al. (2012) sample of resolved debris disks around A stars.
- Publication:
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American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #223
- Pub Date:
- January 2014
- Bibcode:
- 2014AAS...22335024S