A detailed characterization of HR 8799's debris disk with ALMA in Band 7

TL;DR

This paper presents the most detailed ALMA Band 7 observations of HR 8799's debris disk, revealing its complex structure and high eccentricity, and discusses potential planetary influences on its morphology.

Contribution

It provides high-resolution ALMA Band 7 data and detailed modeling of HR 8799's debris disk, advancing understanding of its structure and potential planetary interactions.

Findings

Disk has a smoothly rising inner edge

Outer edge exhibits a smooth fall with a peak in between

Disk structure suggests high eccentricity component

Abstract

The exoplanetary system of HR 8799 is one of the rare systems in which multiple planets have been directly imaged. Its architecture is strikingly similar to that of the Solar System, with the four imaged giant planets surrounding a warm dust belt analogous to the Asteroid Belt, and themselves being surrounded by a cold dust belt analogue to the Kuiper Belt. Previous observations of this cold belt with ALMA in Band 6 (1.3 mm) revealed its inner edge, but analyses of the data differ on its precise location. It was therefore unclear whether the outermost planet HR 8799 b was dynamically sculpting it or not. We present here new ALMA observations of this debris disk in Band 7 (340 GHz, 880 micron). These are the most detailed observations of this disk obtained so far, with a resolution of 1" (40 au) and sensitivity of $9.8\,\mu\mathrm{Jy\,beam^{-1}}$, which allowed us to recover the disk structure with high confidence. In order to constrain the disk morphology, we fit its emission using radiative transfer models combined with a MCMC procedure. We find that this disk cannot be adequately represented by a single power law with sharp edges. It exhibits a smoothly rising inner edge and smoothly falling outer edge, with a peak in between, as expected from a disk that contains a high eccentricity component, hence confirming previous findings. Whether this excited population and inner edge shape stem from the presence of an additional planet remains, however, an open question.