| Description |
Until recently, debris disk identification and study has been accomplished mostly with the 30 year old IRAS all-sky survey (and small number of pointed observations by Spitzer) and it has been limited to larger cold disks. Study of warm debris disks can provide important information concerning terrestrial planet formation and evolution, however, their identification and characterization has been restriected to a very small number of discovered warm debris disks (N<10). The Wide-Field Infrared Explorer (WISE) has surveyed the entire sky at mid-IR wavelenghts, and the WISE survey provides almost 100 times better photometric sensitivity than IRAS and approximately 10 times betterpositional accuracy. Using this improved information and sophisticated target selection criteria, we have identified a complete, well-defined group of 30 nearby (d < 100 pc) Hipparcos main-sequence stars showing the indication of warm debris disks. With nine of these stars being observed as part of an existing Herschel program, we propose to observe the remaining 21 stars to complete a census of warm debris disks in the solar neighborhood. With Herschel PACS measurements at 70 and 160 micron, we can fully constrain dust temperature and dust quantity around this rare group of stars. |
