The absence of cold dust and the mineralogy and origin of the warm dust encircling BD +20 307

Abstract

Spitzer Space Telescope photometry and spectroscopy of BD+20 307 show that all of the dust around this remarkable Gyr-old spectroscopic binary arises within 1 AU. No additional cold dust is needed to fit the infrared excess. Peaks in the 10 and 20 μm spectrum are well fit with small silicates that should be removed on a timescale of years from the system. This is the dustiest star known for its age, which is ≳1 Gyr. The dust cannot arise from a steady-state collisional cascade. A catastrophic collision of two rocky, planetary-scale bodies in the terrestrial zone is the most likely source for this warm dust because it does not require a reservoir of planetesimals in the outer system. © 2011 The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.