Debris Disks around Low-Mass Stars

Details Debris Disks around Low-Mass Stars Debris Disks around Low-Mass Stars

May 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007sptz.prop40454r&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #40454

Other

Scientific paper

Surprisingly, mature low-mass stars do not seem to harbor debris disks. With the exception of a few stars in young clusters (e.g. AU Mic), no stars below ~0.75 solar masses have been identified as having infrared excess. This is in strong contrast with solar-type stars, which frequently have detectable dust emission even at ages of many Gyr. However, relatively few low-mass stars have been targeted (just 20 M stars with S/N > 3 at 70um, c.f. many 100's of F and G stars), giving considerable uncertainty to the strength of the trend, the stellar mass where its starts, and how sharp a cutoff might exist. We propose to observe a sample of 29 bright nearby M stars, more than doubling the current sample, in order to confirm and further quantify the apparent lack of dusty debris around these stars. The lack of IR excess around low mass stars, if confirmed, has important implications for understanding the formation and evolution debris disks. Among possible explanations for the observed trend are that 1) late-type stars simply do not have any colliding belts of planetesimals, 2) they lack gas giant planets that may be necessary to stir up these belts, or 3) low mass stars have strong stellar winds that efficiently remove the dust. Meanwhile other theories of debris disk evolution that are not strongly correlated with spectral type (e.g. planetesimal collisions stimulated by a passing field star) can potentially be ruled out. Given the correlation between planets and debris disks in many of these theories, providing constraints on the origin of IR excess emission will aid in our understanding of planet formation and, by linking theory with spectral type, may assist in future efforts to detect planets.

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