7c1221f4_Staff_Research__Speaker_Title
[Date] Feb. 25 [Speaker/Title] 
Christine Chen (Space Telescope Science Institute) Title: Dusting for Prints of Exoplanetary Systems Abstract: Debris disks are dusty disks around main sequence stars that are distinguished from proto-planetary disks by their small gas:dust ratios. Without bulk gas to retard the loss of particles against radiation pressure or corpuscular stellar wind and Poynting-Robertson (CPR) drag, circumstellar grains typically possess lifetimes of <10,000 years, significantly shorter than the age of the central star, implying that the grains are replenished from a reservoir. In these systems, unseen planets are presumed to perturb minor bodies such as asteroids or comets into crossing orbits, generating small dust grains that are detected via remote sensing. The Spitzer Space Telescope enabled the discovery and characterization of more than one thousand debris disks for the first time. I will (1) provide an overview of debris disks as planetary systems, (2) describe the time and mass dependent evolution of the mid- to far-infrared properties of debris disks and (3) describe how debris disk properties can be used to constrain the architecture of underlying planetary systems. I will also describe outstanding questions about debris disk evolution that will be addressed using the next generation of ground- and space-based instruments. Host: I. Neill Reid
Staff Research
Speaker/Title