Spitzer observations of planet-host stars

Infrared observations of circumstellar dust produced by colliding planetesimals are therefore powerful probes of the formation histories of known planets. Here we present new Spitzer infrared spectrograph (IRS) spectrophotometry of 111 solar-type stars, including 105 planet hosts.

Our observations reveal 11 debris disks, including two previously undetected debris disks orbiting HD 108874 and HD 130322. Combining the 32um spectrophotometry with previously published MIPS photometry, we find that the majority of debris disks around solar-type stars have temperatures in the range 60<~T_dust_<~100K. Assuming a dust temperature T_dust_=70K, which is representative of the nine debris disks detected by both IRS and MIPS, debris rings surrounding Sun-like stars orbit between 15 and 240AU depending on the mean particle size.