Dusty Planetary Systems

Abstract

Extensive photometric stellar surveys show that many main sequence stars show emission at infrared and longer wavelengths that is in excess of the stellar photosphere; this emission is thought to arise from circumstellar dust. The presence of dust disks is confirmed by spatially resolved imaging at infrared to millimeter wavelengths (tracing the dust thermal emission), and at optical to near infrared wavelengths (tracing the dust scattered light). Because the expected lifetime of these dust particles is much shorter than the age of the stars (>10 Myr), it is inferred that this solid material not primordial, i.e. the remaining from the placental cloud of gas and dust where the star was born, but instead is replenished by dust-producing planetesimals. These planetesimals are analogous to the asteroids, comets and Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) in our Solar system that produce the interplanetary dust that gives rise to the zodiacal light (tracing the inner component of the Solar system debris disk). The presence of these "debris disks" around stars with a wide range of masses, luminosities, and metallicities, with and without binary companions, is evidence that planetesimal formation is a robust process that can take place under a wide range of conditions. This chapter is divided in two parts. Part I discusses how the study of the Solar system debris disk and the study of debris disks around other stars can help us learn about the formation, evolution and diversity of planetary systems by shedding light on the frequency and timing of planetesimal formation, the location and physical properties of the planetesimals, the presence of long-period planets, and the dynamical and collisional evolution of the system. Part II reviews the physical processes that affect dust particles in the gas-free environment of a debris disk and their effect on the dust particle size and spatial distribution.Comment: 68 pages, 25 figures. To be published in "Solar and Planetary Systems" (P. Kalas and L. French, Eds.), Volume 3 of the series "Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems" (T.D. Oswalt, Editor-in-chief), Springer 201

DOES THE PRESENCE OF PLANETS AFFECT THE FREQUENCY AND PROPERTIES OF EXTRASOLAR KUIPER BELTS? RESULTS FROM THEHERSCHELDEBRIS AND DUNES SURVEYS

“…Tentative detection of a correlation between low-mass planets and debris disks was presented in Wyatt et al (2012)from a preliminary study based on a Herschel-DEBRIS subsample of the nearest 60 Gtype stars, which was also seen in the volume-limited sample of radial velocity planet host stars examined by Marshall et al (2014). In this paper, we revisit the planet-debris disk correlation (or lack thereof) in the Herschel DEBRIS and DUNES surveys (Eiroa et al 2010;2013;Matthews et al 2010; B. C. Matthews et al 2015, in preparation) to assess whether the frequency and properties of debris disks around a control sample of stars are statistically different from those around stars with high-mass or low-mass planets. In a companion paper (Marshall et al 2014), we describe the individual exoplanet host systems, their debris disks, and the disk dependencies on planetary system properties such as planet semimajor axis and eccentricity.…”

Searching for signatures of planet formation in stars with circumstellar debris discs

“…Although very appealing, the ME09 hypothesis has been challenged. Other works point instead towards Galactic chemical evolution (GCE) effects as the cause of the detected small chemical depletions (González Hernández et al 2010, 2013 or towards an age/Galactic birth place explanation (Adibekyan et al 2014).…”

“…Detailed chemical abundances of planet hosts, especially in solar analogues, have suggested different trends in abundance-condensation temperature (e.g. Meléndez et al 2009;Ramírez et al 2009Ramírez et al , 2010Ramírez et al , 2014Gonzalez et al 2010;Gonzalez 2011), although their interpretation as a chemical fingerprint of the planet formation process has been questioned, and other works point instead towards chemical evolution effects (González Hernández et al 2010, 2013Schuler et al 2011) or an inner Galactic origin of the planet hosts (e.g. Adibekyan et al 2014) as their possible causes.…”

Scope for a small circumsolar annular gravitational contribution to the Pioneer anomaly without affecting planetary orbits

“…The fact is that uncertainties increase in the far Solar System, the Zodiacal light tends to screen the Kuiper belt (Moro-Martin et al 2008;Moro-Martin 2013), the Sun's gravitation is less and so gravitational effects which have not so far been allowed for, may have increasing significance. Thus what happens to the New Horizons spacecraft becomes of increasing interest, particularly if g(r) goes negative in the TNO region, followed by a substantial increase, as modeled in Fig.…”

“…The anomaly is an unexplained blueshift drift in radio-metric tracking data, interpreted as a small constant sunward acceleration of (8.74 ± 1.33) × 10 −10 m s −2 acting on Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 at distances of 20-70 AU . Quite separately, during the last decade, the evidence for the abundance of exoplanets and circumstellar disks containing gaps and rings gradually became very prominent, helping to place our Solar System into its evolutionary context (Meyer et al 2007;Moro-Martin et al 2008;Weinberger 2008;Moro-Martin 2013). Extensive exoKuiper belts around Sun-like stars are also being seen (Nilsson et al 2010;Marshall et al 2011;Donaldson et al 2012) and modeled in preparation for further observations (Ertel et al 2012).…”