The Incidence of Debris Disks at 24 μm and 670 Myr

May 2012 • 2012ApJ...750...98U

Authors • Urban, Laurie E. • Rieke, George • Su, Kate • Trilling, David E.

Abstract • We use Spitzer Space Telescope 24 μm data to search for debris disks among 122 AFGKM stars from the ~670 Myr clusters Hyades, Coma Ber, and Praesepe, utilizing a number of advances in data reduction and determining the intrinsic colors of main-sequence stars. For our sample, the 1σ dispersion about the main-sequence V-K_S , K_S -[24] locus is approximately 3.1%. We identify seven debris disks at 10% or more (>=3σ confidence level) above the expected K_S -[24] for purely photospheric emission. The incidence of excesses of 10% or greater in our sample at this age is 5.7^+3.1 _{- 1.7}%. Combining with results from the literature, the rate is 7.8^+4.2 _{- 2.1}% for early-type (B9-F4) stars and 2.7^+3.3 _{- 1.7}% for solar-like (F5-K9) stars. Our primary sample has strict criteria for inclusion to allow comparison with other work; when we relax these criteria, three additional debris disks are detected. They are all around stars of solar-like type and hence reinforce our conclusion that disks around such stars are still relatively common at 670 Myr and are similar to the rate around early-type stars. The apparently small difference in decay rates between early-type and solar-like stars is inconsistent with the first-order theoretical predictions that the later type stellar disks would decay an order of magnitude more quickly than the earlier type ones.

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Laurie Chu

Postdoctoral Research Associate