Big Disks or Big Winds: Distinguishing between Debris Disk Evolutionary Models

Details Big Disks or Big Winds: Distinguishing between Debris Disk Evolutionary Models Big Disks or Big Winds: Distinguishing between Debris Disk Evolutionary Models

Mar 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008sptz.prop50449r&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #50449

Physics

Scientific paper

Rapidly rotating, x-ray active, young low mass stars are much less likely to have detected debris disks than slowly rotating stars of the same age. Two very different physical models can explain this correlation. Very strong winds from these young stars may impart drag (similar to Poynting-Robinson effect - but from particles rather than photons) on small grains in the disk, clearing the disk of the particles that emit efficiently in the infrared and thus greatly reducing any IR excess. Or, the stars which had long-lived primordial disks during PMS evolution - and which became slow rotators by transferring their angular momentum to those disks - may preferentially form large planetesimal populations which subsequently collide and produce small grains, and hence massive primordial disks may naturally lead to more detectable debris disks. We believe that MIPS observations of a well-selected sample of young F dwarfs can provide data that should be able to discriminate between these two models - and we are requesting observing time to obtain those data. Evidence suggests that PMS disk-locking is effective for stars with masses up to about 1.6 Msun - i.e. for stars as early as F0 on the main sequence. Outer convective envelopes deep enough to generate significant stellar winds, however, only occur for stars later than spectral type F5. If winds are responsible for the observed correlation, then we should only see if for late type F dwarfs. If PMS disk-locking is the cause, we expect to see the effect throughout the whole F dwarf spectral type range.

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