Abstract
Determination of the composition and size distribution of dust grains in debris discs is strongly dependent on constraining the underlying spatial distribution of that dust through multiwavelength, spatially resolved imaging spanning near-infrared to millimetre wavelengths. To date, spatially resolved imaging exists for well over a hundred debris disc systems. Simple analytical radiative transfer models of debris dust emission can reveal trends in disc properties as a function of their host stars’ luminosities. Here, we present such an analysis for 133 debris discs, calculating the dust grain minimum sizes (smin), dust masses (Mdust), and exponents of the size distribution (q) in conjunction with their architectures determined at far-infrared or millimetre wavelengths. The distribution of q at far-infrared to millimetre wavelengths is characterized, finding a value of 3.49+0.38-0.33. We further newly identify a trend between q and Rdisc, which may be indicative of velocity dependent fragmentation, or grain growth at large radii. We find the disc masses inferred from this analysis are consistent with those of protoplanetary discs. Finally, we identify samples of debris discs suitable for further characterization at millimetre and centimetre wavelengths, expanding the number of spatially resolved systems upon which future studies of these statistics can be based.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | staf2221 |
| Journal | Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |
| Volume | 545 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Feb 2026 |
Funding
The authors thank the anonymous referee for their detailed comments that helped improve the contents of the manuscript. JPM thanks Dr Carlo Manara for sharing the code and data from C. F. Manara et al. (2023) which were used in making Fig. 7.This research has made use of the SIMBAD data base, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France (M. Wenger et al. 2000). This research has made use of the Astrophysics Data System, funded by NASA under Cooperative Agreement 80NSSC21M00561.JPM acknowledges research support by the National Science and Technology Council of Taiwan under grant NSTC 112-2112-M-001-032-MY3. RY acknowledges research support from the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics Summer Student Program. FK acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, under grant number PID2023-149918NB-I00. This work was also partly supported by the Spanish program Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2020-001058-M, financed by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. SZ acknowledges support from the Research Fellowship Program of the European Space Agency (ESA). LM acknowledges funding by the European Union through the E-BEANS European Research Council project (grant number 100117693). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.Facilities: None.Software: This paper has made use of the Python packages astropy (Astropy Collaboration et al. 2013, 2018), SciPy (P. Virtanen et al. 2020), NumPy (C. R. Harris et al. 2020), matplotlib (J. D. Hunter 2007), MiePython (S. Prahl 2024), emcee (D. Foreman-Mackey et al. 2013), and corner (D. Foreman-Mackey 2016).
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 103003 Astronomy
- 103004 Astrophysics
Keywords
- (stars:) circumstellar matter
- infrared: planetary systems
- radio continuum: planetary systems
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