[29.07] High resolution near-infrared imaging of the debris disk around AU Mic

AAS 205th Meeting, 9-13 January 2005
Session 29 Planetary Systems and Origins of Planetary Bodies
Oral, Monday, January 10, 2005, 10:00-11:30am, Town and Country

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[29.07] High resolution near-infrared imaging of the debris disk around AU Mic

M. Fitzgerald, J. Graham, P. Kalas (UC Berkeley), B. Matthews (HIA)

We present observations of AU Microscopii using ground-based adaptive optics and HST NICMOS coronagraphy. AU Mic is a member of the Beta Pictoris moving group, and it is presently the youngest (~10 Myr), nearby (~10 pc) star with a debris disk detected in scattered light. The youth and proximity of AU Mic increase its value in investigations of planet formation, tracers of which may be found in disk non-uniformity (including planet-like sources). As in Beta Pic, this young disk shows considerable substructure in its midplane. We highlight properties of the substructure via analysis of high-resolution, multicolor, infrared imaging. Additionally, we examine the sensitivity of our observations in detecting point-like sources as close as 12 AU radius from the star.

This work is supported by the NSF Center for Adaptive Optics at UC Santa Cruz, under cooperative agreement AST 98-76783, and by STScI/NASA/AURA grant HST-GO-10228.01-A.

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