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Published October 2014 | Submitted + Published
Journal Article Open

A near-infrared interferometric survey of debris-disk stars. IV. An unbiased sample of 92 southern stars observed in H band with VLTI/PIONIER

Abstract

Context. Detecting and characterizing circumstellar dust is a way to study the architecture and evolution of planetary systems. Cold dust in debris disks only traces the outer regions. Warm and hot exozodiacal dust needs to be studied in order to trace regions close to the habitable zone. Aims. We aim to determine the prevalence and to constrain the properties of hot exozodiacal dust around nearby main-sequence stars. Methods. We searched a magnitude-limited (H ≤ 5) sample of 92 stars for bright exozodiacal dust using our VLTI visitor instrument PIONIER in the H band. We derived statistics of the detection rate with respect to parameters, such as the stellar spectral type and age or the presence of a debris disk in the outer regions of the systems. We derived more robust statistics by combining our sample with the results from our CHARA/FLUOR survey in the K band. In addition, our spectrally dispersed data allowed us to put constraints on the emission mechanism and the dust properties in the detected systems. Results. We find an overall detection rate of bright exozodiacal dust in the H band of 11% (9 out of 85 targets) and three tentative detections. The detection rate decreases from early type to late type stars and increases with the age of the host star. We do not confirm the tentative correlation between the presence of cold and hot dust found in our earlier analysis of the FLUOR sample alone. Our spectrally dispersed data suggest that either the dust is extremely hot or the emission is dominated by the scattered light in most cases. The implications of our results for the target selection of future terrestrial planet-finding missions using direct imaging are discussed.

Additional Information

© 2014 ESO. Article published by EDP Sciences. Received 19 June 2014. Accepted 9 September 2014. Published online 03 November 2014. Based on observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under program IDs 089.C-0365 and 090.C-0526. We thank P. Thébault for his indispensable contribution to the EXOZODI project. S. Ertel, J.-C. Augereau, and A. Bonsor thank the French National Research Agency (ANR, contract ANR-2010 BLAN-0505-01, EXOZODI) and PNP-CNES for financial support. PIONIER is funded by the Université Joseph Fourier (UJF), the Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG), the Agence Nationale pour la Recherche (ANR-06-BLAN-0421 and ANR-10-BLAN-0505), and the Institut National des Science de l'Univers (INSU PNP and PNPS). The integrated optics beam combiner is the result of a collaboration between IPAG and CEA-LETI based on CNES R&T funding. The authors warmly thank everyone involved in the VLTI project. This work is based on observations made with the ESO telescopes. It made use of the Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) and of the Centre de Donnees astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS, A&AS 143, 23).

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Submitted - 1409.6143v2.pdf

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