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Register a new userDebris Disks Around Nearby Stars with Circumstellar Gas
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We conducted a survey for infrared excess emission from 16 nearby main sequence shell stars using the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer (MIPS) on the Spitzer Space Telescope. Shell stars are early-type stars with narrow absorption lines in their spectra that appear to arise from circumstellar (CS) gas. Four of the 16 stars in our survey showed excess emission at 24 microns and 70 microns characteristic of cool CS dust and are likely to be edge-on debris disks. Including previously known disks, it appears that the fraction of protoplanetary and debris disks among the main sequence shell stars is at least 48% +/- 14%. While dust in debris disks has been extensively studied, relatively little is known about their gas content. In the case of Beta Pictoris, extensive observations of gaseous species have provided insights into the dynamics of the CS material and surprises about the composition of the CS gas coming from young planetesimals (e.g. Roberge et al. 2006). To understand the co-evolution of gas and dust through the terrestrial planet formation phase, we need to study the gas in additional debris disks. The new debris disk candidates from this Spitzer survey double the number of systems in which the gas can be observed right now with sensitive line of sight absorption spectroscopy.
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According to the current paradigm of circumstellar disk evolution, gas-rich primordial disks evolve into gas-poor debris disks compose of second-generation dust. To explore the transition between these phases, we searched for $^{12}$CO, $^{13}$CO, and C$^{18}$O emission in seven dust-rich debris disks around young A-type stars, using ALMA in Band 6. We discovered molecular gas in three debris disks. In all these disks, the $^{12}$CO line was optically thick, highlighting the importance of less abundant molecules in reliable mass estimates. Supplementing our target list by literature data, we compiled a volume-limited sample of dust-rich debris disks around young A-type stars within 150 pc. We obtained a CO detection rate of 11/16 above a $^{12}$CO J=2$-$1 line luminosity threshold of $sim 1.4 times 10 ^4$ Jykms$^{-1}$pc$^2$ in the sample. This high incidence implies that the presence of CO gas in bright debris disks around young A-type stars is likely more the rule than the exception. Interestingly, dust-rich debris disks around young FG-type stars exhibit, with the same detectability threshold as for A-type stars, significantly lower gas incidence. While the transition from protoplanetary to debris phase is associated with a drop of dust content, our results exhibit a large spread in the CO mass in our debris sample, with peak values comparable to those in protoplanetary Herbig Ae disks. In the particularly CO-rich debris systems the gas may have primordial origin, characteristic of a hybrid disk.
We completed a search for circumstellar disks around Herbig Be stars using the NRAO Very Large Array (VLA) and the IRAM Plateau de Bure (PdB) interferometers. We present our new VLA and PdBI data for the three objects MWC 297, Z CMa, and LKHa 215. We constructed the SED from near-IR to centimeter wavelengths by adding our millimeter and centimeter data to the available data at other wavelengths, mainly Spitzer images. The entire SED was fitted using a disk+envelope model. In addition, we compiled all the disk millimeter observations in the literature and completed a statistical analysis of all the data. We show that the disk mass is usually only a small percentage (less than 10%) of the mass of the entire envelope in HBe stars. For the disks, there are large source-to-source variations. Two disks in our sample, R Mon and Z CMa, have similar sizes and masses to those found in T Tauri and Herbig Ae stars. The disks around MWC 1080 and MWC 297 are, however, smaller (rout<100 AU). We did not detect the disks towards MWC 137 and LkHa 215 at millimeter wavelengths, which limits the mass and the size of the possible circumstellar disks. A comparison between our data and previous results for T Tauri and Herbig Ae stars indicates that although massive disks (0.1 Msun) are found in young objects (10^4 yr), the masses of the disks around Herbig Be stars are usually 5-10 times lower than those around lower mass stars. We propose that disk photoevaporation is responsible for this behavior. In Herbig Be stars, the UV radiation disperses the gas in the outer disk on a timescale of a few 10^5 yr. Once the outer part of the disk has vanished, the entire gaseous disk is photoevaporated on a very short timescale (10^5 yr) and only a small, dusty disk consisting of large grains remains.
We present ISO-SWS observations of H2 pure-rotational line emission from the disks around low and intermediate mass pre-main-sequence stars as well as from young stars thought to be surrounded by debris disks. We detect `warm (T ~ 100-200 K) H2 gas around many sources, including tentatively the debris-disk objects. The mass of this warm gas ranges from ~1E-4 Solar mass up to 8E-3 Solar mass, and can constitute a non-negligible fraction of the total disk mass. Complementary single-dish 12CO 3-2, 13CO 3-2 and 12CO 6-5 observations have been obtained as well. These transitions probe cooler gas at T ~ 20-80 K. Most objects show a double-peaked CO emission profile characteristic of a disk in Keplerian rotation, consistent with interferometer data on the lower-J lines. The ratios of the 12CO 3-2/ 13CO 3-2 integrated fluxes indicate that 12CO 3-2 is optically thick but that 13CO 3-2 is optically thin or at most moderately thick. The 13CO 3-2 lines have been used to estimate the cold gas mass. If a H2/CO conversion factor of 1E4 is adopted, the derived cold gas masses are factors of 10-200 lower than those deduced from 1.3 millimeter dust emission assuming a gas/dust ratio of 100,in accordance with previous studies. The warm gas is typically 1-10 % of the total mass deduced from millimeter continuum emission, but can increase up to 100% or more for the debris-disk objects. Thus, residual molecular gas may persist into the debris-disk phase. No significant evolution in the H2, CO or dust masses is found for stars with ages in the range of 1E6-1E7 years, although a decrease is found for the older debris-disk star beta Pictoris. Existing models fail to explain the amount of warm gas quantitatively.
We report on a high angular resolution survey of circumstellar disks around 24 northern sky Be stars. The K-band continuum survey was made using the CHARA Array long baseline interferometer (baselines of 30 to 331 m). The interferometric visibilities were corrected for the flux contribution of stellar companions in those cases where the Be star is a member of a known binary or multiple system. For those targets with good uv coverage, we used a four parameter Gaussian elliptical disk model to fit the visibilities and to determine the axial ratio, position angle, K-band photospheric flux contribution, and angular diameter of the disk major axis. For the other targets with relatively limited uv coverage, we constrained the axial ratio, inclination angle, and or disk position angle where necessary in order to resolve the degeneracy between possible model solutions. We also made fits of the ultraviolet and infrared spectral energy distributions to estimate the stellar angular diameter and infrared flux excess of each target. The mean ratio of the disk diameter (measured in K-band emission) to stellar diameter (from SED modeling) is 4.4 among the 14 cases where we reliably resolved the disk emission, a value which is generally lower than the disk size ratio measured in the higher opacity Halpha emission line. We estimated the equatorial rotational velocity from the projected rotational velocity and disk inclination for 12 stars, and most of these stars rotate close to or at the critical rotational velocity.
Context: Debris disks are important observational clues for understanding planetary-system formation process. In particular, faint warm debris disks may be related to late planet formation near 1 AU. A systematic search of faint warm debris disks is necessary to reveal terrestrial planet formation. Aims: Faint warm debris disks show excess emission that peaks at mid-IR wavelengths. Thus we explore debris disks using the AKARI mid-IR all-sky point source catalog (PSC), a product of the second generation unbiased IR all-sky survey. Methods : We investigate IR excess emission for 678 isolated main-sequence stars for which there are 18 micron detections in the AKARI mid-IR all-sky catalog by comparing their fluxes with the predicted fluxes of the photospheres based on optical to near-IR fluxes and model spectra. The near-IR fluxes are first taken from the 2MASS PSC. However, 286 stars with Ks<4.5 in our sample have large flux errors in the 2MASS photometry due to saturation. Thus we have measured accurate J, H, and Ks band fluxes, applying neutral density (ND) filters for Simultaneous InfraRed Imager for Unbiased Survey (SIRIUS) on IRSF, the phi 1.4 m near-IR telescope in South Africa, and improved the flux accuracy from 14% to 1.8% on average. Results: We identified 53 debris-disk candidates including eight new detections from our sample of 678 main-sequence stars. The detection rate of debris disks for this work is ~8%, which is comparable with those in previous works by Spitzer and Herschel. Conclusion: The importance of this study is the detection of faint warm debris disks around nearby field stars. At least nine objects have a large amount of dust for their ages, which cannot be explained by the conventional steady-state collisional cascade model.
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