Dust size and spatial distributions in debris discs: predictions for exozodiacal dust dragged in from an exo-Kuiper belt

TL;DR

This paper develops an analytical model for the size and spatial distribution of exozodiacal dust originating from outer planetesimal belts, validated by simulations, predicting detectable dust levels and explaining observed phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a new analytical model for dust distribution in debris discs, validated by simulations, to predict exozodiacal dust levels and their detectability.

Findings

P-R drag can produce detectable exozodiacal dust levels.

Most exozodiacal dust detections with known belts are explained by P-R drag.

Systems without detectable outer belts may still have faint dust causing exozodi.

Abstract

The SEDs of some nearby stars show mid-infrared excesses from warm habitable zone dust, known as exozodiacal dust. This dust may originate in collisions in a planetesimal belt before being dragged inwards. This paper presents an analytical model for the size distribution of particles at different radial locations in such a scenario, considering evolution due to destructive collisions and Poynting-Robertson (P-R) drag. Results from more accurate but computationally expensive numerical simulations of this process are used to validate the model and fit its free parameters. The model predicts 11 $\mu$m excesses ($R_{11}$) for discs with a range of dust masses and planetesimal belt radii using realistic grain properties. We show that P-R drag should produce exozodiacal dust levels detectable with the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer (LBTI) ($R_{11} > 0.1\%$) in systems with known outer belts; non-detection may indicate dust depletion, e.g. by an intervening planet. We also find that LBTI could detect exozodiacal dust dragged in from a belt too faint to detect at far-infrared wavelengths, with fractional luminosity $f\sim 10^{-7}$ and radius $\sim 10-80$ au. Application to systems observed with LBTI shows that P-R drag can likely explain most (5/9) of the exozodiacal dust detections in systems with known outer belts; two systems ($\beta$ Uma and $\eta$ Corvi) with bright exozodi may be due to exocomets. We suggest that the three systems with exozodiacal dust detections but no known belt may have cold planetesimal belts too faint to be detectable in the far-infrared. Even systems without outer belt detections could have exozodiacal dust levels $R_{11} > 0.04\%$ which are problematic for exo-Earth imaging.