Oral Presentation

On the origin of exocometary belts around nearby stars

Author(s): Luca Matra (CfA), Peyton Benac (Harvard), and the REASONS team.

Presenter: Luca Matra (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian)

Belts of exocomets are ubiquitous around nearby stars and uniquely probe the composition and dynamics of planetary systems. Observing the belt location (radius) through resolved population surveys enables studies of the birth location of exocomets. Our pilot literature study indicated a significant correlation between the radius of belts and their host star's luminosity. This indicates that comet formation is driven by thermal processes in protoplanetary disks, with a potential link to the CO snow line location.
In this talk, I will present results from the recently completed REASONS SMA and ALMA survey. This provides us with an expanded, complete flux-limited sample of resolved belts, shedding new light on the formation and evolution of the population of belts around nearby stars. In addition, I will present the results of an SMA study constraining the comet formation process directly, through the detection of substructure in a young Herbig Ae disk, the precursor of nearby belts around intermediate-mass stars.