28 Debris Disks Resolved on Solar System Scales with the Gemini Planet Imager
Abstract
We will summarize discoveries and results from our ~4-year circumstellar debris disk imaging campaign within the Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey (GPIES). Nearing completion after starting in November 2014, GPIES has surveyed over 500 young nearby stars to directly image giant planets in near-IR light with the extreme-AO, high-contrast GPI instrument on the Gemini South telescope. The complementary disk campaign is itself a large, uniform survey that spatially resolved 28 debris disks using both polarimetric and spectroscopic observations of an 88 star GPIES subsample. For the first time for many of these planetary systems we are probing the ~10-200 au range with spatial resolutions of a few au; regions fundamental to planet formation. We will present the GPIES disk images showing multiple morphologies and extents, including several which represent the first scattered-light and/or polarized intensity detections. We will also discuss findings about the bulk properties of our debris disk sample and implications of our observational sensitivity to scattered-light disks for future imaging missions. This work benefited from NASA's NExSS (NNX15AD95G) research coordination network sponsored by NASA's Science Mission Directorate.
- Publication:
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American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #233
- Pub Date:
- January 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AAS...23334005E