Probing for exoplanets hiding in dusty debris disks: Disk imaging, characterization, and exploration with HST/STIS multi-roll coronagraphy
- Steward Observatory and the Department of Astronomy, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721 (United States)
- Eureka Scientific, 2452 Delmer, Suite 100, Oakland, CA 96002 (United States)
- Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
- NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory, Code 667, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, College of Charleston, 66 George Street, Charleston, SC 29424 (United States)
- Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institute of Washington, 5241 Branch Road, NW, Washington, DC 20015 (United States)
- H. L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Oklahoma, 440 West Brooks Street, Norman, OK 73019 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, P.O. Box 870324, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0324 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071 (United States)
- Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg (Germany)
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 (United States)
- The University of Tokyo, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, 2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-8588 (Japan)
Spatially resolved scattered-light images of circumstellar debris in exoplanetary systems constrain the physical properties and orbits of the dust particles in these systems. They also inform on co-orbiting (but unseen) planets, the systemic architectures, and forces perturbing the starlight-scattering circumstellar material. Using Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) broadband optical coronagraphy, we have completed the observational phase of a program to study the spatial distribution of dust in a sample of 10 circumstellar debris systems and 1 'mature' protoplanetrary disk, all with HST pedigree, using point-spread-function-subtracted multi-roll coronagraphy. These observations probe stellocentric distances ≥5 AU for the nearest systems, and simultaneously resolve disk substructures well beyond corresponding to the giant planet and Kuiper Belt regions within our own solar system. They also disclose diffuse very low-surface-brightness dust at larger stellocentric distances. Herein we present new results inclusive of fainter disks such as HD 92945 (F {sub disk}/F {sub star} = 5 × 10{sup –5}), confirming, and better revealing, the existence of a narrow inner debris ring within a larger diffuse dust disk. Other disks with ring-like substructures and significant asymmetries and complex morphologies include HD 181327, for which we posit a spray of ejecta from a recent massive collision in an exo-Kuiper Belt; HD 61005, suggested to be interacting with the local interstellar medium; and HD 15115 and HD 32297, also discussed in the context of putative environmental interactions. These disks and HD 15745 suggest that debris system evolution cannot be treated in isolation. For AU Mic's edge-on disk, we find out-of-plane surface brightness asymmetries at ≥5 AU that may implicate the existence of one or more planetary perturbers. Time-resolved images of the MP Mus protoplanetary disk provide spatially resolved temporal variability in the disk illumination. These and other new images from our HST/STIS GO/12228 program enable direct inter-comparison of the architectures of these exoplanetary debris systems in the context of our own solar system.
- OSTI ID:
- 22342252
- Journal Information:
- Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online), Vol. 148, Issue 4; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1538-3881
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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