Confirming the Primarily Smooth Structure of the Vega Debris Disk at Millimeter Wavelengths

Abstract

Clumpy structure in the debris disk around Vega has been previously reported at millimeter wavelengths and attributed to concentrations of dust grains trapped in resonances with an unseen planet. However, recent imaging at similar wavelengths with higher sensitivity has disputed the observed structure. We present three new millimeter-wavelength observations that help to resolve the puzzling and contradictory observations. We have observed the Vega system with the Submillimeter Array (SMA) at a wavelength of 880 um and angular resolution of 5"; with the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA) at a wavelength of 1.3 mm and angular resolution of 5"; and with the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) at a wavelength of 3.3 mm and angular resolution of 10". Despite high sensitivity and short baselines, we do not detect the Vega debris disk in either of the interferometric data sets (SMA and CARMA), which should be sensitive at high significance to clumpy structure based on previously reported observations. We obtain a marginal (3-sigma) detection of disk emission in the GBT data; the spatial distribution of the emission is not well constrained. We analyze the observations in the context of several different models, demonstrating that the observations are consistent with a smooth, broad, axisymmetric disk with inner radius 20-100 AU and width >50 AU. The interferometric data require that at least half of the 860 um emission detected by previous single-dish observations with the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope be distributed axisymmetrically, ruling out strong contributions from flux concentrations on spatial scales of <100 AU. These observations support recent results from the Plateau de Bure Interferometer indicating that previous detections of clumpy structure in the Vega debris disk were spurious.

11 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

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• Millimeter Emission Structure in the first ALMA Image of the AU Mic Debris Disk
• Resolved Imaging of the HR 8799 Debris Disk with Herschel
• A Primer on Unifying Debris Disk Morphologies
• Herschel's "Cold Debris Disks": Background Galaxies or Quiescent Rims of Planetary Systems?
• A Decade of SCUBA-2: A Comprehensive Guide to Calibrating 450 $\mu$m and 850 $\mu$m Continuum Data at the JCMT
• MOBSTER -- VI. The crucial influence of rotation on the radio magnetospheres of hot stars
• Correlations between the stellar, planetary and debris components of exoplanet systems observed by $\text{Herschel}$
• High-contrast Imaging with Spitzer: Deep Observations of Vega, Fomalhaut, and epsilon Eridani
• Deep LMT/AzTEC millimeter observations of Epsilon Eridani and its surroundings
• Resolved Millimeter-Wavelength Observations of Debris Disks around Solar-Type Stars
• The Gemini NICI Planet-Finding Campaign: The Offset Ring of HR 4796 A
• Dust Populations in the Iconic Vega Planetary System Resolved by ALMA
• MAMBO image of the debris disk around epsilon Eridani : robustness of the azimuthal structure
• Extrasolar Kuiper Belts
• ALMA and VLA Observations of the HD 141569 System
• A decade of radial-velocity monitoring of Vega and new limits on the presence of planets
• MESAS: Measuring the Emission of Stellar Atmospheres at Submm/mm wavelengths
• Debris Disks: Probing Planet Formation
• Imaging of exocomets with infrared interferometry
• Debris disks around stars in the NIKA2 era