Exploring Planetary Debris Disks at Millimeter Wavelengths:
First Detection & Mapping with CARMA


First Author:
Holly Maness
Email: hmaness AT astro.berkeley.edu
UC Berkeley
Department of Astronomy
601 Campbell Hall
Berkeley CA 94720 USA

Abstract

The morphology of planetary debris disks provides the principal evidence required to advance our understanding of their structure and evolution. Although some disks have been mapped in the visible, these images trace sub-micron grains, whose dynamics are dominated by radiative and drag forces. In contrast, millimeter observations reveal large grains primarily influenced by gravity. Therefore, such observations offer the most promising way to probe mean-motion and secular resonances excited by unseen exoplanets. However, despite their importance in understanding these systems, few resolved millimeter debris disk observations currently exist, largely owing to the limited sensitivity and angular resoution of the previous generation of facilities. High resolution observations with the new Combined ARray for Millimeter Astronomy (CARMA) provide the exciting possibility of increasing the number of resolved millimeter systems, thereby serving as an important stepping stone to ALMA. With this motivation, we are running a CARMA program to map relatively bright debris disks. To date, CARMA has contributed three new maps, doubling the number of successful interferometric debris disks observations. I will discuss our team's contributions to these new detections, specifically the recent 1.3-mm mapping of HD-32297 and 49-Ceti. With a sub-arcsecond beam, the HD-32297 detection represents the highest angular resolution millimeter debris disk observation made to date. The resulting map shows an asymmetric structure, perhaps pointing to a planetary induced resonance. The 49-Ceti map, on the other hand, reveals an extended ring of large grains previously only suggested by the SED. These observations, in conjunction with Corder & Carpenter's exquisite map of HD-107146, attest to CARMA's ability to efficiently detect and map these objects. In this context, I will briefly address our future plans to develop a larger scale program with CARMA, following the upcoming receiver and correlator upgrades.
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