Investigating the presence of two belts in the HD 15115 system
Abstract
Context. High-contrast instruments like SPHERE (Spectro- Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch) enable spatial resolution of young planetary systems and allow us to study the connection between planets and the dust contained in debris discs by the gravitational influence a planet can have on its environment. Aims. We present new observations of the edge-on debris disc around HD 15115 (F star at 48.2 pc) obtained in the near-IR. We search for observational evidence for a second inner planetesimal ring in the system. Methods. We obtained total intensity and polarimetric data in the broad bands J and H and processed the data with differential imaging techniques achieving an angular resolution of about 40 mas. A grid of models describing the spatial distribution of the grains in the disc is generated to constrain the geometric parameters of the disc and to explore the presence of a second belt. We perform a photometric analysis of the data and compare disc brightness in two bands in scattered and in polarized light. Results. We observe an axisymmetric planetesimal belt with a radius of ~2′′, an inclination of 85.8° ± 0.7° and position angle of 278.9° ± 0.1°. The photometric analysis shows that the west side is ~2.5 times brighter in total intensity than the east side in both bands, while for polarized light in the J band this ratio is only 1.25. We also find that the J–H colour of the disc appears to be red for the radial separations r ≲ 2′′ and is getting bluer for the larger separations. The maximum polarization fraction is 15–20% at r ~ 2.5′′. The polarized intensity image shows some structural features inside the belt which can be interpreted as an additional inner belt. Conclusions. The apparent change of disc colour from red to blue with an increasing radial separation from the star could be explained by the decreasing average grain size with distance. The presence of an inner belt slightly inclined with respect to the main planetesimal belt is suspected from the data but the analysis and modelling presented here cannot establish a firm conclusion due to the faintness of the disc and its high inclination.
Additional Information
© 2019 ESO. Article published by EDP Sciences. Received 31 May 2018; Accepted 6 December 2018; Published online 20 February 2019. Based on data collected at the European Southern Observatory, Chile under programs 098.C-0686 and 096.C-0640. We would like to thank the referee for many thoughtful comments which helped to improve this paper. This work issupported by the Swiss National Science Foundation through the grant number 200020 - 162630. We acknowledge the financial support from the Programme National de Planétologie (PNP) of CNRS-INSU co-funded by the CNES, and by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-14-CE33-0018). J.O. acknowledges financial support from the ICM (Iniciativa Científica Milenio) via the Núcleo Milenio de Formación Planetaria grant, from the Universidad de Valparaíso, and from Fondecyt (grant 1180395). J.M. acknowledges support from the NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF2-51414.001 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS5-26555.Attached Files
Published - aa33542-18.pdf
Submitted - 1812.02750.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 93358
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20190228-135738094
- 200020-162630
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
- Programme National de Planétologie (PNP)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
- Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU)
- Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES)
- ANR-14-CE33-0018
- Agence Nationale pour la Recherche (ANR)
- Iniciativa Científica Milenio
- Universidad de Valparaíso
- 1180395
- Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico (FONDECYT)
- HST-HF2-51414.001
- NASA Hubble Fellowship
- NAS5-26555
- NASA
- NASA Sagan Fellowship
- Created
-
2019-02-28Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Astronomy Department