"Debris Disks: Probes of Planetary System Formation, Evolution, and Architecture"

 

ABSTRACT:

Debris disks are dusty, gas-poor disks around main sequence stars, generated by collisions between parent bodies and/or sublimation of comets. The Spitzer Space Telescope has enabled photometric searches and spectroscopic studies of thermal emission from dust in hundreds of debris disks at mid- to far-infrared wavelengths.

 

These observations allow us: (1) to measure the disk fraction (in young associations and moving groups) as a function of stellar age and mass to constrain the conditions under which terrestrial planets formed and (1) to infer the properties of dust (distance, size, composition) in individual systems, constrain the dust dynamics, and infer the presence of planets.

 

In this talk, I will discuss the demographics, architecture, and composition of dust in debris disks as inferred from infrared observations I will also describe outstanding questions about the planet-debris disk connection and planetary system evolution that will be addressed using future ground- and space-based instruments.