Candidate Main‐Sequence Stars with Debris Disks: A New Sample of Vega‐like Sources

Abstract

Vega-like sources are main-sequence stars that exhibit IR fluxes in excess of expectations for stellar photospheres, most likely due to reradiation of stellar emission intercepted by orbiting dust grains. We have identified a large sample of main-sequence stars with possible excess IR radiation by cross-correlating the Michigan Catalog of Two-dimensional Spectral Types for the HD Stars with the IRAS Faint Source Survey Catalog. Some 60 of these Vega-like sources were not found during previous surveys of the IRAS database, the majority of which employed the lower sensitivity Point Source Catalog. Here, we provide details of our search strategy, together with a preliminary examination of the full sample of Vega-like sources.