THE SEARCH FOR COMPANIONS USING DEBRIS CANDIDATES

Learning about how a star formed can lead to many interesting properties of the star’s system. Since stars form from accreting disks made of dust and gas, studying the leftover materials serves as one of the best methods to determine these properties. These various space materials can also hide other interesting features. We are interested on what is included with all the emission from the debris disk. We know in advance which debris candidates (stars that have a debris disk) we will be looking at. By studying these stars that we know have debris disks around them, we can also search for hidden companions. To do this, we use near-infrared images taken from the Lick 3-meter Shane Telescope. Using our image reduction software, we are able to determine various properties of the star(s) such as the spectral type, various fluxes from the different sources, and size of the star. More importantly, these results will help astronomers learn how these types of binary star systems come to form and how the debris disks influence the star systems to behave.

Additional Abstract Information


Student(s): Andrew A. Rowe

Department: Physics and Astronomy

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Harold Butner

Type: Poster

Year: 2013

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