Interstellar medium sculpting of nearby debris disks
Debes, J (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)
Tuesday 10 November 2009, 16:50-17:10
Satellite
Abstract
Many nearby debris disks that have been resolved in scattered light show a variety of twists, warps, or asymmetries. Often these features are noted and the presence of unseen planetary companions is inferred. However, the outer regions of debris disks can be impacted by the surrounding interstellar environment. In this talk, I present a simple model involving supersonic gas drag on debris disk dust particles that explains the scattered light observations of HD 61005, HD 15115, and HD 32297, three perturbed debris disks.
