Debris Disk Dynamical Theory
First Author:
Mark Wyatt
Email: wyatt AT ast.cam.ac.uk
IoA, University of Cambridge
Cambridge, CB30HA United Kingdom
Abstract
The last few years have seen a dramatic increase in both the quantity and quality of information on debris disks. Photometric surveys show how debris disks evolve and high resolution studies of individual objects provide detailed information on disk structure. Emerging from this wealth of data is the realisation that despite the diversity of dust structures seen in different systems, the underlying model of a planetesimal belt being ground into dust through collisions and being perturbed by an adjacent planetary system provides an excellent description of many systems. However, there is a growing number of examples that defy this simple model leading to the conclusion that stochastic processes may be at play in some systems and that the appearance of debris disks can provide information not just about the underlying planetary system, but also about planet formation processes that could be ongoing in these systems. This talk will review the theory through which debris disk structure and evolution is interpreted, showing how the observations have been used to constrain the underlying physical processes, and identifying the outstanding issues.
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