Scattering of small bodies by planets: a potential origin for exozodiacal dust ?

TL;DR

This study explores whether scattering of small bodies by planets in stable systems can explain the presence of exozodiacal dust around stars, using N-body simulations to assess the efficiency of this process.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of planetary system architectures needed to sustain observed exozodiacal dust levels over time.

Findings

Massive outer belts and tightly packed low-mass planets are required for older stars to retain dust.

Such specific system architectures are likely rare, questioning their role in producing exozodiacal dust.

Simulations show the scattering efficiency depends on planetary system configuration.

Abstract

High levels of exozodiacal dust are observed around a growing number of main sequence stars. The origin of such dust is not clear, given that it has a short lifetime against both collisions and radiative forces. Even a collisional cascade with km-sized parent bodies, as suggested to explain outer debris discs, cannot survive sufficiently long. In this work we investigate whether the observed exozodiacal dust could originate from an outer planetesimal belt. We investigate the scattering processes in stable planetary systems in order to determine whether sufficient material could be scattered inwards in order to retain the exozodiacal dust at its currently observed levels. We use N-body simulations to investigate the efficiency of this scattering and its dependence on the architecture of the planetary system. The results of these simulations can be used to assess the ability of hypothetical chains of planets to produce exozodi in observed systems. We find that for older (>100Myr) stars with exozodiacal dust, a massive, large radii (>20AU) outer belt and a chain of tightly packed, low-mass planets would be required in order to retain the dust at its currently observed levels. This brings into question how many, if any, real systems possess such a contrived architecture and are therefore capable of scattering at sufficiently high rates to retain exozodi dust on long timescales.