We have observed 60 Weak-line T Tauri stars (WTTSs) toward the Chamaeleon star forming region using the AKARI Far-Infrared Surveyor (FIS) All-Sky maps. We could not detect any signicant emission from each source even at the most sensitive WIDE-S band. Then, we have performed stacking analysis of these WTTSs using the WIDE-S band images to improve the sensitivity. However, we could not detect any signicant emission in the resultant image with a noise level of 0.05 MJy sr-1, or 3 mJy for a point source. The three-sigma upper limit of 9 mJy leads to the disk dust mass of 0.01 M⊕. This result suggests that the disks around Chamaeleon WTTSs are already evolved to debris disks.
Debris disks are important observational clues to understanding on-going planetary system formation. They are usually identied by signicant mid-infrared excess on top of the photospheric emission of a central star on the basis of prediction from J-, H-, and Ks-band uxes and the stellar model spectra. For bright stars, 2MASS near-infrared uxes suffer large uncertainties due to the near-infrared camera satu- ration. Therefore we have performed follow-up observations with the IRSF 1.4 m near-infrared telescope located in South Africa to obtain accurate J-, H-, and Ks-band uxes of the central stars. Among 754 main-sequence stars which are detected in the AKARI 18 m band, we have performed photometry for 325 stars with IRSF. As a result, we have successfully improved the ux accuracy of the central stars from 9.2 % to 0.5 % on average. Using this dataset, we have detected 18 m excess emission from 57 stars in our samples with a 3 level. We nd that some of them have high ratios of the excess to the photospheric emission even around very old stars, which cannot be explained by the current planet-formation theories.
Debris disks are circumstellar dust disks around main-sequence stars. They are important observational clues to understanding the planetary system formation. The zodiacal light is the thermal emission from the dust disk in our Solar system. For a comprehensive understanding of the nature and the evolution of dust disks around main-sequence stars, we try a comparative study of debris disks and the zodiacal light. We search for debris disks using the AKARI mid-infrared all-sky point source catalog. By applying accurate ux estimate of the photospheric emission based on the follow-up near-infrared observations with IRSF, we have improved the detection rate of debris disks. For a detailed study of the structure and grain properties in the zodiacal dust cloud, as an example of dust disks around main-sequence stars, we analyze the AKARI mid-infrared all-sky diffuse maps. As a result of the debris disks search, we found old (>1 Gyr) debris disks which have large excess emission compared to their age, which cannot be explained simply by the conventional steady-state evolution model. From the zodiacal light analysis, we nd the possibility that the dust grains trapped in the Earth's resonance orbits have increased by a factor of 3 in the past 20 years. Combining these results, we discuss the non-steady processes in debris disks and the zodiacal light.
Dust has recently been found to be prevalent in compact binaries such as non-magnetic Cataclysmic Variable systems. As a possible source of this dust is from solid bodies, we explore impacts to non-magnetic Cataclysmic Variable disks. We use three-dimensional Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamic simulations to search for impact signatures. From injections of whole bodies to these disks, we find pulse shapes in simulated bolometric light curves that resemble impact ashes in the light curves of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 event. As a result, we tentatively identify these light curve shapes as signatures of impacts.
Using the AKARI mid-infrared all-sky survey catalogue, we are searching for debris disks which are important objects as an observational clue to on-going planetary system formation. Debris disk candidates are selected through a significant excess of the measured flux over the predicted flux for the stellar photospheric emission at 18 μm . The fluxes were originally estimated based on the near-infrared spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of central stars constructed from the 2MASS J-, H-, and Ks-band fluxes. However, we found that in many cases the 2MASS photometry has large errors due to saturation in the central part of a star image. Therefore we performed follow-up observations with the IRSF 1.4m near-infrared telescope in South Africa to obtain accurate fluxes in the J-, H-, and Ks-bands. As a result, we have succeeded in improving the SEDs of the central stars. This improvement of the SEDs allows us to make more reliable selection of the candidates.
Recently far infra-red (FIR) polarization of the 850μm continuum emission from T Tauri disks has been detected. The observed degree of polarization is around 3 %. Since thermal emission from dust grains dominates the spectral energy distribution at the FIR regime, dust grains might be the cause of the polarization. We explore alignment of dust grains by radiative torque in T Tauri disks and provide predictions for polarized emission for disks viewed at different wavelengths and viewing angles. In the presence of magnetic field, these aligned grains produce polarized emission in infrared wavelengths. When we take a Mathis-Rumpl-Nordsieck-type distribution with maximum grain size of 500-1000μm the degree of polarization is around 2-3 % level at wavelengths larger than ~100μm Our study indicates that multifrequency infrared polarimetric studies of protostellar disks can provide good insights into the details of their magnetic structure.