A $~75\%$ Occurrence Rate of Debris Discs around F stars in the $\beta$ Pic Moving Group

TL;DR

This study finds a high occurrence rate (~75%) of debris discs around F stars in the 23-million-year-old Beta Pictoris Moving Group, suggesting rapid disc evolution influenced by embedded planets and environmental factors.

Contribution

It provides the first imaging of a debris disc in the BPMG and compares disc incidence and properties across different stellar populations and ages.

Findings

Debris discs are present around 75% of F stars in BPMG.

Disc incidence in young groups is higher than in field stars.

Fractional luminosity declines rapidly within 100 Myr, faster than collisional models predict.

Abstract

Only 20\% of old field stars have detectable debris discs, leaving open the question of what disc, if any, is present around the remaining 80\%. Young moving groups allow to probe this population, since discs are expected to have been brighter early on. This paper considers the population of F~stars in the 23~Myr-old BPMG where we find that 9/12 targets possess discs. We also analyse archival ALMA data to derive radii for 4 of the discs, presenting the first image of the 63au radius disc of HD~164249. Comparing the BPMG results to disc samples from $\sim45$~Myr and $\sim150$~Myr-old moving~groups, and to discs found around field stars, we find the disc incidence rate in young moving~groups is comparable to that of the BPMG and significantly higher than that of field~stars. The BPMG discs tend to be smaller than those around field~stars. However, this difference is not statistically significant due to the small number of targets. Yet, by analysing the fractional luminosity vs disc radius parameter space we find that the fractional luminosities in the populations considered drop by two orders of magnitude within the first 100~Myr. This is much faster than expected by collisional evolution, implying a decay equivalent to $1/\text{age}^2$. We attribute this depletion to embedded planets which would be around 170~$M_\text{earth}$ to cause a depletion on the appropriate timescale. However, we cannot rule out that different birth environments of nearby young clusters result in brighter debris discs than the progenitors of field~stars which likely formed in a more dense environment.