Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
May 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21430903c&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #214, #309.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.738
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Debris disks have been detected around cool WDs ( 10,000 K) at distances <<0.01 AU; their locations within the Roche limit and the enhanced metal abundances in the WD atmospheres both point to an origin of tidally disrupted asteroids. Recent Spitzer Space Telescope observations of the Helix Nebula's central star show excess emission at 24 and 70 micron. Follow-up IRS observations show that the IR excess is caused by dust continuum. As the Helix central star is a hot WD (110,000 K) and the emitting dust has a blackbody temperature of 90-130 K, the dust must be distributed at distances of 35-150 AU from the WD. As such distance in our solar system corresponds to the Kuiper Belt. Su et al. (2007) suggested that collisions among Kuiper-Belt-like Objects produce the dust disk around the Helix central star.
To search for debris disks similar to that around the Helix central star, we carried out a Spitzer MIPS 24 micron survey of 72 hot WDs in Cycle 4, and found excess 24 micron emission in 7 of these hot WDs. As this survey was not completed before the Spitzer Cycle 5 proposal deadline, we were only able to obtain follow-up IRS spectra for 4 hot WDs with 24 micron excesses. Among the three spectra we have received to date, all show IR continuum emission. The nature of these dust disks at radii of 50-100 AU will be discussed.
Bilíkovà Jana
Caulet Adeline
Chu Y.-H. Y.-H.
de Marco Orsola
Gruendl Robert
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