New Light on Young Stars:
Spitzer's View of Circumstellar Disks

Dusty Cometary Tails on a Stellar Scale

First Author:
Xavier Koenig
Email: xkoenig AT cfa.harvard.edu
Harvard University
Cambridge MA USA

Abstract

Recent observations of star forming regions with Spitzer at 24 microns have shown the effects of massive stars on nearby disks, as manifested by large-scale cometary objects that glow in the mid-infrared. We present results for four such objects in the W5 star forming region. We model the objects as circumstellar disks in which dust is blown out by the radiation pressure from nearby O stars, after the gas has been removed by photoevaporation. We discuss the implications of this phenomenon for disk evolution and planet formation in the clustered environment.