The twofold debris disk around HD 113766 A - Warm and cold dust as seen with VLTI/Midi and Herschel/Pacs

TL;DR

This study combines new far-IR Herschel/Pacs and ground-based mid-IR observations to model the twofold debris disk around HD 113766 A, revealing a stable, multi-component dust environment likely resulting from collisions during planetary formation.

Contribution

The paper provides a detailed spatial and compositional model of the debris disk around HD 113766 A, highlighting the importance of spatially resolved data over SED modeling alone.

Findings

Inner disk within 1 AU with Fe-rich crystalline olivine grains

Outer disk located between 9-13 AU

Dust emission features are stable over 8 years, indicating continuous replenishment

Abstract

Warm debris disks are a sub-sample of the large population of debris disks, and display excess emission in the mid-IR. Around solar-type stars, very few objects show emission features in mid-IR spectroscopic observations, that are attributed to small, warm silicate dust grains. The origin of this warm dust can possibly be explained either by a collision between several bodies or by transport from an outer belt. We present and analyse new far-IR Herschel/Pacs observations, supplemented by ground-based data in the mid-IR (VLTI/Midi and VLT/Visir), for one of these rare systems: the 10-16 Myr old debris disk around HD 113766 A. We improve an existing model to account for these new observations, and better constrain the spatial distribution of the dust and its composition. We underline the limitations of SED modelling and the need for spatially resolved observations. We find that the system is best described by an inner disk located within the first AU, well constrained by the Midi data, and an outer disk located between 9-13 AU. In the inner dust belt, our previous finding of Fe-rich crystalline olivine grains still holds. We do not observe time variability of the emission features over at least a 8 years time span, in a environment subjected to strong radiation pressure. The time stability of the emission features indicates that {\mu}m-sized dust grains are constantly replenished from the same reservoir, with a possible depletion of sub-{\mu}m-sized grains. We suggest that the emission features may arise from multi-composition aggregates. We discuss possible scenarios concerning the origin of the warm dust. The compactness of the innermost regions as probed by Midi, as well as the dust composition, suggest that we are witnessing the outcomes of (at least) one collision between partially differentiated bodies, in an environment possibly rendered unstable by terrestrial planetary formation.