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.

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 2012

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• Debris disks around Sun-like stars
• Spitzer IRS Spectroscopy of IRAS-Discovered Debris Disks
• The Complete Census of 70-um-Bright Debris Disks within the FEPS (Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems) Spitzer Legacy Survey of Sun-like Stars
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• Long-Term Collisional Evolution of Debris Disks
• Collisional processes and size distribution in spatially extended debris discs
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• Infrared Emission from the Dusty Disk Orbiting GD 362, An Externally-Polluted White Dwarf
• Evolution of Mid-IR Excess Around Sun-like Stars: Constraints on Models of Terrestrial Planet Formation
• First scattered light images of debris disks around HD 53143 and HD 139664
• Spitzer 24 Micron Observations of Open Cluster IC 2391 and Debris Disk Evolution of FGK Stars
• Complex Organic Materials in the Circumstellar Disk of HR 4796A
• IRS Spectra of Solar-Type Stars: \break A Search for Asteroid Belt Analogs
• An improved model of the Edgeworth-Kuiper debris disk
• On the Relationship Between Debris Disks and Planets
• The dust, planetesimals and planets of HD 38529
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• A Comprehensive Census of Nearby Infrared Excess Stars
• Constraining the giant planets' initial configuration from their evolution: implications for the timing of the planetary instability
• Searching for signatures of planet formation in stars with circumstellar debris discs
• Correlations between the stellar, planetary and debris components of exoplanet systems observed by $\text{Herschel}$
• Origin of 1I/'Oumuamua. I. An ejected protoplanetary disk object?
• From scattered-light to millimeter emission: A comprehensive view of the Gyr-old system of HD 202628 and its eccentric debris ring
• A temperature condensation trend in the debris-disk binary system Zet2 Ret
• New disk discovered with VLT/SPHERE around the M star GSC 07396-00759
• Extrasolar comets : the origin of dust in exozodiacal disks?
• Interpreting the extended emission around three nearby debris disc host stars
• How to disentangle geometry and mass-loss rate from AGB-star spectral energy distributions -- The case of EP Aqr
• 94 Ceti: a triple star with a planet and dust disc