Peter Pan disk

A Peter Pan disk is a circumstellar disk around a star or brown dwarf that appears to have retained enough gas to form a gas giant planet for much longer than the typically assumed gas dispersal timescale of approximately 5 million years. Several examples of such disks have been observed to orbit stars with spectral types of M or later. The presence of gas around these disks has generally been inferred from the total amount of radiation emitted from the disk at infrared wavelengths, and/or spectroscopic signatures of hydrogen accreting onto the star. To fit one specific definition of a Peter Pan disk, the source needs to have an infrared "color" of , an age of >20 Myr and spectroscopic evidence of accretion.[1][2]

In 2016 volunteers of the Disk Detective project discovered WISE J080822.18-644357.3 (or J0808). This low-mass star showed signs of youth, for example a strong infrared excess and active accretion of gaseous material. It is part of the 45+11
−7 Myr old Carina young moving group, older than expected for these characteristics of an M-dwarf.[3][4] Other stars and brown dwarfs were discovered to be similar to J0808, with signs of youth while being in an older moving group.[4][2] Together with J0808, these older low-mass accretors in nearby moving groups have been called Peter Pan disks in one scientific paper published in early 2020.[5][2] Since then the term was used by other independent research groups.[6][7][8]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Disk Detective blog was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference Silverberg2020 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Silverberg was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Murphy2018 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ "Low-mass Stars | Steven M. Silverberg". www.nhn.ou.edu. Retrieved 2019-07-25.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Coleman2020 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Eriksson2020 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Dai2020 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).