Geophysics and Tectonics Seminar winter-2016

Continuing the Search for Planets in “Holey Debris Disks”

will present the results from a survey of stars with “holey debris disks”, two-belt debris disks, in the southern hemisphere. I will briefly summarize the image processing techniques used to directly image these targets. We demonstrate that these disks with holes are good targets for directly detecting planets with the discovery of a planet around two of our targets, HD 95086 and HD 106906, at L’-band. The detected planets likely shepherd the outer cool debris belt. The relatively dust-free gap in these disks implies the presence of one or more closer-in planets. I will discuss our continued search for planets around promising new targets using Keck and the vector vortex coronagraph.