The ALMA survey to Resolve exoKuiper belt Substructures (ARKS) XII. Constraints on large bodies embedded in discs
Abstract
The ALMA survey to Resolve exoKuiper belt Substructures (ARKS) presents detailed constraints on structure and properties of a sample of 24 debris discs at millimetre wavelengths, including measurements of vertical thicknesses for a subsample of discs. We estimated sizes and total masses of large bodies that feed collisional cascades producing the observed millimetre dust in 11 ARKS discs with a well constrained vertical thickness. Separately, we estimated the sizes and total masses of large bodies that could be gravitationally stirring these discs, assuming that such stirring is the origin of the vertical thickness. We used a semi-analytic particle-in-a-box collisional model and a semi-analytic model of stirring through gravitational scattering. We accounted for the dependence of collisional damping efficiency on the average collision velocity. We find that planetesimals feeding the collisional cascades are less than 20 km in size, while the total masses in the planetesimals are lower than 200 M⊕. There is a good agreement between minimum disc masses inferred from millimetre and infrared observations. The hypothetical stirrers are always larger in size than the planetesimals, but they do not necessarily contain most of the disc mass. In agreement with previous work, the observed dust masses can be explained by steady-state collisional models with reasonable disc masses. The measured vertical scale-heights can be explained by gravitational stirring from embedded large bodies of reasonable properties. However, more advanced models are needed to address the observed non-Gaussian vertical profiles, along with the dependence of disc scale-height on particle size and stellocentric distance.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{jankovic2026alma,
title = {{The ALMA survey to Resolve exoKuiper belt Substructures (ARKS) XII. Constraints on large bodies embedded in discs}},
author = {M. R. Jankovic and A. V. Krivov and T. D. Pearce and A. A. Sefilian and M. C. Wyatt and E. Chiang and C. del Burgo and Y. Han and J. Jovicic and S. Marino and B. Zawadzki and A. M. Hughes and T. Löhne and P. Luppe and J. P. Marshall and Th. Henning and H. E. Schlichting and S. Mac Manamon and N. Pawellek and D. J. Wilner},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2611.04976},
eprint = {2611.04976},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.04976},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - The ALMA survey to Resolve exoKuiper belt Substructures (ARKS) XII. Constraints on large bodies embedded in discs
AU - M. R. Jankovic
AU - A. V. Krivov
AU - T. D. Pearce
AU - A. A. Sefilian
AU - M. C. Wyatt
AU - E. Chiang
AU - C. del Burgo
AU - Y. Han
AU - J. Jovicic
AU - S. Marino
AU - B. Zawadzki
AU - A. M. Hughes
AU - T. Löhne
AU - P. Luppe
AU - J. P. Marshall
AU - Th. Henning
AU - H. E. Schlichting
AU - S. Mac Manamon
AU - N. Pawellek
AU - D. J. Wilner
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/03
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2611.04976
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.04976
AB - The ALMA survey to Resolve exoKuiper belt Substructures (ARKS) presents detailed constraints on structure and properties of a sample of 24 debris discs at millimetre wavelengths, including measurements of vertical thicknesses for a subsample of discs. We estimated sizes and total masses of large bodies that feed collisional cascades producing the observed millimetre dust in 11 ARKS discs with a well constrained vertical thickness. Separately, we estimated the sizes and total masses of large bodies that could be gravitationally stirring these discs, assuming that such stirring is the origin of the vertical thickness. We used a semi-analytic particle-in-a-box collisional model and a semi-analytic model of stirring through gravitational scattering. We accounted for the dependence of collisional damping efficiency on the average collision velocity. We find that planetesimals feeding the collisional cascades are less than 20 km in size, while the total masses in the planetesimals are lower than 200 M_⊕. There is a good agreement between minimum disc masses inferred from millimetre and infrared observations. The hypothetical stirrers are always larger in size than the planetesimals, but they do not necessarily contain most of the disc mass. In agreement with previous work, the observed dust masses can be explained by steady-state collisional models with reasonable disc masses. The measured vertical scale-heights can be explained by gravitational stirring from embedded large bodies of reasonable properties. However, more advanced models are needed to address the observed non-Gaussian vertical profiles, along with the dependence of disc scale-height on particle size and stellocentric distance.
ER -