Studying debris disks with near‐infrared interferometry

In this talk, I will describe and illustrate two different ways in which near-infrared stellar interferometry can be used to constrain the nature and physics of debris disks, and help understand the global architecture of planetary systems in general. In the first part of the talk, I will review the on-going efforts to detect bright exozodiacal disks with precision near-infrared interferometry. I will describe the results of the exozodi survey that we are currently carrying out at the CHARA array, and briefly discuss our first results and perspectives with the new PIONIER instrument at the VLTI (including the identification of previously unknown low-mass companions). Preliminary statistical trends on the occurrence of bright exozodi around nearby main sequence stars will be presented, and I will discuss how this information could be used to constrain the global architecture and evolution of debris disks. In the second part of the talk, I will focus on our on-going project to characterize the “spin-orbit” alignment of resolved debris disks with the rotation axis of their (rapidly rotating) host star. Our first result obtained with the VLTI/AMBER spectro-interferometer on Fomalhaut will be presented, as well as its possible consequences on the dynamics of the planetary system and on the physics of the grains composing the Fomalhaut dust ring. I will then briefly describe the status and perspectives of this project.