This database was initiated to provide a central point of information on stars that may harbour dusty debris disks. The majority of the 901 stars in the database were identified as such in published surveys that correlated stellar catalogues with IRAS surveys and showed that these stars exhibit IR emission in excess of that expected from the stellar photospere, however a few other favourite candidates have also slipped onto the list.
As well as collating this list of candidates (see input data screen),
we have also tested these for "debris disk"-ness.
An IR excess can arise for a number of reasons (e.g., YSOs, giants
and Be stars), and not all of the surveys were concerned with solely
identifying debris disks.
Thus we have cross-correlated the database stars with the spectral
types from SIMBAD and the Michigan spectral calatolgues (see spectral
types screen), and have defined a true debris disk candidate to be a
main sequence star (luminosity class V or IV/V) with excess IR
emission.
Other designations we use for the cause of the IR excess are: Be,
Unassociated and Other.
To present information about the dust emission, we have
correlated the database with the IRAS catalogues (see IRAS
assocations screen).
As well as providing information on the SED of the dust emission,
this has lead to an accurate determination of the likelihood that
each star really has an IRAS source associated with it.
The IRAS sources identified in the original surveys are occasionally
too distant and are more likely associated with other sources.
All of this information is summarized on the summary screen, and a summary of information about individual sources can be accessed from this screen. These individual summaries include our notes about each source (e.g., our observations, recent results).
Finally, the process stages screen indicates the stage of processing for each record and when it was undertaken, and also provides more information about how the data was processed at each stage.
Note that as this dataset is quite large, each screen reports only information requested according to a query on certain stellar parameters, although of course all data can be displayed if requested.
If you would like to submit information to appear in this database, have any suggestions, or indeed if you find any errors, please get in touch (wyatt@roe.ac.uk)
Acknowledgements:
This database was compiled by Mark Wyatt and Stephen McGill,
with the help of Bill Dent and Vivienne Wild.
Updated 13-11-2003