Planetary Systems Around Spectroscopic Binary Stars: The Very Dusty, Old, Sun-like BD+20 307

Details Planetary Systems Around Spectroscopic Binary Stars: The Very Dusty, Old, Sun-like BD+20 307 Planetary Systems Around Spectroscopic Binary Stars: The Very Dusty, Old, Sun-like BD+20 307

Jan 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21335106z&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #351.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.492

Physics

Optics

Scientific paper

Field star BD+20 307 is the dustiest known main sequence star, based on the fraction of its bolometric luminosity, 4%, emitted at infrared wavelengths (Song et al. 2005; Rhee et al. 2008). The temperature of the particles that carry this large IR luminosity is comparable to that of the Sun's zodiacal dust, and their existence is likely a consequence of a fairly recent collision of large objects such as planets or planetary embryos. BD+20 307 is now known to be a 3.4 day spectroscopic binary composed of two nearly equal solar-mass stars (Weinberger 2008; Zuckerman et al. 2008). Consideration of various age indicators implies that that star is likely to be at least one Gyr old, perhaps many Gyr old. Probably the dust around this close binary star has nothing to do with planet formation and everything to do with some major catastrophic event that recently took place near 1 AU in a mature planetary system. Destabilizing planetary orbits in an old system with a single star at its center appears to be possible, e.g., Mercury (Batygin & Laughlin 2008 and references therein). Destabilization may be easier to achieve in a close binary star system and easier yet in a triple star system. Tokovinin et al. (2006) conclude that, for a spectroscopic binary star with an orbital period of 3.4 days, the probability is 70% that a third star is present. Thus, we have searched for such a tertiary star in the BD+20 307 system using accurate radial velocities measured at Fairborn and Lick observatories and with adaptive optics imaging at Keck observatory. As of the writing of this abstract, no third star is detected. Limits on mass and semimajor axis of any tertiary star will be discussed. This research was supported by a grant from the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

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