Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21733901e&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #217, #339.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Fomalhaut, a bright A3V star located 7.7 pc away, is a particularly interesting system for the study of planetary formation and evolution because it possesses a debris disk and a planet revealed by direct imaging. The whole system provides a unique opportunity to explore the connection between debris disk structure and planetary configuration. In this work we present deep Spitzer MIPS observations of Fomalhaut. The new data combined with detailed models lead to the following conclusions: (1) a confirmation of a central, unresolved warm ( 150 K) component, analogous to the asteroid belt, and (2) the dust emission of the cold disk can be traced, at least, to 700 AU from the star. The measured size is much larger than the previous estimates of the cold outer ring (160-260 AU in radius) from the scattered-light and submillimeter images respectively, suggesting the presence of an extended halo around the system. The extended halo is likely to originate from small grains that are being ejected and/or on highly eccentric orbits under the influence of radiation pressure. From modelling the surface brightness distributions, we estimate the halo is as bright as 25% of the total emission at 70 um. We also compare these results with the halo in the Vega system to shed light on the different levels of stirring in the parent-body rings.
Espinoza Pablo
Rieke George
Stapelfeldt Karl
Su Kate
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