J/ApJ/959/43 Warm Spitzer monitoring of RZ Psc (Su+, 2023)
RZ Piscium hosts a compact and highly perturbed debris disk.
Su K.Y.L., Kennedy G.M., Rieke G.H., Hughes A.M., Lin Y.-C., Kittling J.,
Jackson A.P., Anche R.M., Liu H.B.
<Astrophys. J., 959, 43 (2023)>
=2023ApJ...959...43S 2023ApJ...959...43S
ADC_Keywords: Photometry, infrared; Stars, variable
Keywords: Circumstellar matter ; Debris disks ; Infrared excess ;
Extrasolar rocky planets ; Exoplanet migration
Abstract:
RZ Piscium (RZ Psc) is well known in the variable star field because
of its numerous irregular optical dips in the past 5 decades, but the
nature of the system is heavily debated in the literature. We present
multiyear infrared monitoring data from Spitzer and WISE to track the
activities of the inner debris production, revealing stochastic
infrared variability as short as weekly timescales that is consistent
with destroying a 90km sized asteroid every year. ALMA 1.3mm data
combined with spectral energy distribution modeling show that the disk
is compact (∼0.1-13au radially) and lacks cold gas. The disk is found
to be highly inclined and has a significant vertical scale height.
These observations confirm that RZ Psc hosts a close to edge-on,
highly perturbed debris disk possibly due to migration of recently
formed giant planets that might be triggered by the low-mass companion
RZ Psc B if the planets formed well beyond the snowlines.
Description:
Warm Spitzer monitoring data were obtained under two GO programs,
PID 11093 and 13014 (PI: Su), with observations covering 2015 March to
2018 December. RZ Psc has two Spitzer visibility windows per year,
each a total of ∼36 days in length. A total of 95 sets of observations
at both the 3.6 and 4.5um bands was obtained. See Section 2.1.
NEOWISE has provided all-sky W1- and W2-band photometry every 6 months
since 2014. We extracted the single-exposure photometry from IRSA to
fill the gaps between Spitzer visibility windows. See Section 2.2.
RZ Psc was observed with the SubMillimeter Array (SMA) at 225GHz in
2015. Seven antennas in both compact (on September 8) and extended (on
September 19) array configurations were used, covering a uv-distance
range of ∼10-170kλ. See Section 2.3.
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations
were taken on 2021 August 22 and 23 under project 2019.1.01701.S
(PI: Su K.). Three spectral windows were devoted to the continuum at
245GHz with a 2GHz bandwidth, while one was centered on the CO(2-1)
231GHz line with 1920 channels (0.31km/s). See Section 2.4.
Objects:
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RA (ICRS) DE Designation(s)
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01 09 42.05 +27 57 01.9 RZ Psc = V* RZ Psc
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File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
tablea1.dat 76 95 The Spitzer IRAC fluxes of the RZ Psc system
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See also:
II/246 : 2MASS All-Sky Catalog of Point Sources (Cutri+ 2003)
II/297 : AKARI/IRC mid-IR all-sky Survey (ISAS/JAXA, 2010)
II/328 : AllWISE Data Release (Cutri+ 2013)
I/337 : Gaia DR1 (Gaia Collaboration, 2016)
I/350 : Gaia EDR3 (Gaia Collaboration, 2020)
J/ApJ/688/1345 : Differential phot. of the SB* BD+20 307 (Zuckerman+, 2008)
J/ApJ/792/30 : NEOWISE magnitudes for near-Earth objects (Mainzer+, 2014)
J/ApJ/788/48 : X-ray through NIR photometry of NGC 2617 (Shappee+, 2014)
J/ApJ/805/77 : Spitzer 3.6 and 4.5um monitoring of 5 stars (Meng+, 2015)
J/AJ/157/202 : IRAC fluxes of the ID8 and P1121 systems (Su+, 2019)
J/MNRAS/488/3588 : Debris discs in medium separation bin. (Yelverton+, 2019)
J/ApJ/898/21 : Spitzer/IRAC obs. of HD113766 & HD172555 systems (Su+, 2020)
J/ApJ/923/90 : LCOGT V-band monitoring of TYC 8830 410 1 (Melis+, 2021)
J/ApJ/918/71 : Spitzer/IRAC phot. of V488 Persei debris disk (Rieke+, 2021)
J/ApJ/927/135 : Spitzer/IRAC fluxes of the HD 166191 system (Su+, 2022)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: tablea1.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 8 I8 --- AOR [53385984/61646592] Spitzer AOR key
10- 20 F11.5 d BMJD3.6 [57096.8/58464.5] Barycentric Modified Julian
Date of 3.6um flux observation
22- 26 F5.2 mJy F3.6 [53/65.4] Spitzer/IRAC 3.6um band flux density
28- 31 F4.2 mJy e_F3.6 [0.2/0.5] Uncertainty in F3.6
33- 37 F5.2 mJy FIRE3.6 [19/31.4] Spitzer/IRAC 3.6um band excess flux
density, FIRE,3.6 (1)
39- 42 F4.2 mJy e_FIRE3.6 [0.5/0.7] Uncertainty in FIRE3.6
44- 54 F11.5 d BMJD4.5 [57096.8/58464.5] Barycentric Modified Julian
Date of 4.5um flux observation
56- 60 F5.2 mJy F4.5 [45.3/57.5] Spitzer/IRAC 4.5um band flux density
62- 65 F4.2 mJy e_F4.5 [0.1/0.4] Uncertainty in F4.5
67- 71 F5.2 mJy FIRE4.5 [23.3/35.5] Spitzer/IRAC 4.5um band excess
flux density, FIRE,4.5 (1)
73- 76 F4.2 mJy e_FIRE4.5 [0.3/0.5] Uncertainty in FIRE4.5
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Note (1): The excess quantity excluding the star.
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Prepared by [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 28-Jan-2026