DPS 2001 meeting, November 2001
Session 60. Extra-Solar Planets
Oral, Chairs: M. Kuchner, M. McGrath, Saturday, December 1, 2001, 2:30-4:10pm, Regency GH

[Previous] | [Session 60] | [Next]


[60.05] From the observation of circumstellar dust disks to orbital structure

E. Pantin, S. Charnoz (Groupe Gamma-Gravitation SAp CE Saclay)

Dust disks around main-sequence stars (the so-called ``Vega like phenomenon") are now resolved for some of them thanks to high resolution instruments in the near-infrared range (adaptive optics, HST) or in the mid-infrared range where the inner central regions of the disks can be directly observed without any coronographic masking. The surface density profiles can be measured with a spatial accuracy of several AUs. We show here that it is possible thanks to a numerical algorithm (under hypotheses of axi-symmetry and regularized by maximum entropy) to retrieved, from an observed surface density, the orbital elements of the disk particles. This generic method may have multiple potential applications, one of them beeing the indirect detection of massive planet embedded in circumstellar disks. We will show some preliminary results of this method in different cases, as well as its limitations.


[Previous] | [Session 60] | [Next]