| Description |
Follow-up Herschel observations have recently confirmed the presenceof a resolved debris disk around GJ 581, a nearby M star with 4 low-mass(super-Earth) planets. Debris disks around M stars are exceedingly rare(~1% detection rate in the DEBRIS survey), raising the question of whetherthe debris might somehow be directly related to the neighboring planets. In order to assess whether low-mass planets are strongly correlatedwith dusty debris or whether this is just a chance coincidence, we proposeto dramatically increase the number of planet-bearing M stars observedby Herschel, from the current 3 up to a total of 20 stars. The proposedPACS 100/160 um images of 17 planet-bearing M stars will clarifywhether this class of system preferentially has orbiting debris.Should any new disks be detected, the close proximity of the targetM stars (~10 pc) makes them favorable candidates for resolved imaging,which may help to explain the unusual asymmetry in GJ 581ssimilarly resolved disk. |
