Debris Disks as Tracers of Nearby Planetary Systems

Many main-sequence stars possess tenuous circumstellar dust clouds believed to trace extrasolar analogs of the Sun's asteroidand Kuiper Belts.  While most of these "debris disks" are known only from far-infrared photometry, dozens are now spatially resolved. I will review the observed structural properties of debris disks as revealed by imaging with the Hubble, Spitzer, and Herschel Space Telescopes.  I will show how modelling of the far-infrared spectral energy distributions of resolved disks can be used to constrain their dust particle sizes and albedos.  I will review cases of disks whose substructures suggest planetary perturbations, including a newly-discovered eccentric ring system.  Substantial progress indisk and exoplanet imaging over the next few years will take us closer to the goal of spectroscopic study of terrestrial exoplanetsorbiting nearby stars.

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