arXiv subjects

Yinuo Han

Publications and source records attributed to Yinuo Han.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Substructure evolution from protoplanetary to debris disks driven by mutually gravitating planetesimals and implications on Kepler resonances and free-floating planets

Motivated by recent observations suggesting rings found in debris disks are wider than those in protoplanetary disks, we consider a picture in which planetesimals formed in radially narrow dust traps radially diffuse into debris rings via mutual scattering. Under this picture, evolving the fractional widths ($\Delta r/r$) of resolved debris rings back to a few Myr according to the theoretical $t^{1/5}$ evolutionary trajectory reproduces the protoplanetary ring distribution. We inferred the product of the ring mass and individual planetesimal mass required to reach the observed debris ring widths at their ages, finding that $M_\mathrm{disk}\times m$ ranges from $10^{-3}$ to $10^{3} \, M_\oplus^2$. The distribution of $M_\mathrm{disk} \times m$ appears to correlate with the stellar mass, peaking at 1.5 to 2 $M_\odot$, which resembles the stellar mass dependence of the giant exoplanet occurrence rate. The population of resolved debris rings lie close to the $\Delta r / r = 10 \, h$ equipartition relation expected of a planetesimal ring that formed narrow, with typical resolved debris disks still expected to be broadening radially and vertically at present. If sufficiently massive ($\sim$10 $M_\oplus$), this radial broadening can send a few Mercurys to the terrestrial region within 10 Myr, making debris disks a plausible source of planetesimals disrupting resonant chains among Kepler planets. Within Gyr timescales, outer planetesimal belts can also eject $\sim$1% of their mass into interstellar space if they consist of Moon-sized bodies or above, suggesting that the slow and steady intrinsic evolution of massive debris disks could contribute to the interstellar free-floating population of terrestrial-planet-sized bodies.

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arXiv2026

Viscously Stirring Particle Disks into Lorentzians and Gaussians to Infer Dynamical and Collisional Masses (ARKS XIII)

Disks (Keplerian or otherwise, particulate or fluid) are often assumed to have densities that drop off vertically as Gaussians. Recent mm-wave imaging of circumstellar debris disks contradicts this assumption, revealing vertical profiles in dust that resemble Lorentzians. As part of the ARKS ALMA Large Program, we show how Lorentzians and Gaussians define an evolutionary sequence for disks of gravitationally scattering (viscously stirring) particles. When orbits are crossing and eccentricities $e \gg$ inclinations $i$, each scattering can change a particle's inclination by $\pm \,\Delta i \propto i$. A random walk with fixed steps in $\Delta i/i = \Delta \ln i$ produces a thick, log normal tail at large $i$ that leads to Lorentzian tails in density. This result holds independent of the origin of the large eccentricities, which may characterize either the stirrers or the objects being stirred; what matters is that relative motions parallel to the disk midplane are faster than perpendicular motions, and that vertical displacements during encounters are smaller than horizontal displacements. After enough scatterings, $i$ comes into equipartition with $e$, $\Delta i$ stops exponentiating, and the vertical density relaxes to a Gaussian. We identify four regimes of dispersion-dominated viscous stirring, three of which are out-of-equipartition and where $i$ is stirred faster than $e$. The stirrers for ARKS debris disks may range from Pluto to a few times Mars in size, and be sufficiently few as to be collisionless. Or the stirrers may be even smaller, and be so numerous and collide so frequently that they source the collisional cascades that produce observable dust.

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arXiv2026

The multi-wavelength vertical structure of the archetypal $\beta$ Pictoris debris disk

Thermal imaging of debris disks is resolving the vertical height in an increasing number of systems, enabling the use of the vertical structure to decode the dynamical state of the planetary system. In this study, we examine the multi-wavelength structure of the archetypical edge-on debris disk of $\beta$ Pic, extensive imaging of which across mid-infrared to millimeter wavelengths makes it the prime system to study the vertical height across different grain size populations. We non-parametrically modelled the radial profiles and constrained the vertical height at each wavelength while taking into account the vertical warping, finding the disk to be on average 1.5 times thicker vertically in the mid-infrared compared to the millimeter and the scale height to be relatively constant across radius. The decreasing scale height with wavelength is in contrast to predictions from collisional damping, and could be a result of the combined effect of radiation pressure and random collisions. We also show that the disk is warped at millimeter wavelengths and find tentative evidence for clumps in ALMA images which will require follow-up observations to confirm. The millimeter vertical warping is consistent with findings in scattered light and the secular perturbation interpretation due to the inner giant planets, which could also explain the relatively constant apparent scale height across radius, and potentially earlier findings of a non-Gaussian vertical profile which this study confirms.

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arXiv2026

A radially broad collisional cascade in the debris disk of $\gamma$ Ophiuchi observed by JWST

The A1V star $\gamma$ Oph, at a distance of 29.7 pc, is known from Spitzer imaging to host a debris disk with a large radial extent and from its spectral energy distribution to host inner warm dust. We imaged $\gamma$ Oph with JWST/MIRI at 15 and 25.5 $\mu$m, revealing smooth and radially broad emission that extends to a radius of at least 250 au at 25.5 $\mu$m. In contrast to JWST findings of an inner small-grain component with distinct ringed structures in Fomalhaut and Vega, the mid-infrared radial profile combined with prior ALMA imaging suggests a radially broad steady-state collisional cascade with the same grain size distribution throughout the disk. This further suggests that the system is populated by a radially broad planetesimal belt from tens of au or less to well over 200 au, rather than a narrow planetesimal belt from which the observed dust is displaced to appear broad. The disk is also found to be asymmetric, which could be modelled by a stellocentric offset corresponding to a small eccentricity of $\sim$0.03. Such a disk eccentricity could be induced by a mildly eccentric $<10\,M_\mathrm{Jup}$ giant planet outside 10 au, or a more eccentric companion up to stellar mass at a few au, without producing a resolvable radial gap in the disk.

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arXiv2026

The ALMA survey to Resolve exoKuiper belt Substructures (ARKS) II. The radial structure of debris discs

The ALMA survey to Resolve exoKuiper belt Substructures (ARKS) was recently completed to cover the lack of high-resolution observations of debris discs and to investigate the prevalence of substructures such as radial gaps and rings in a sample of 24 discs. This study characterises the radial structure of debris discs in the ARKS programme. To identify and quantify the disc substructures, we modelled all discs with a range of non-parametric and parametric approaches. We find that of the 24 discs in the sample, 5 host multiple rings, 7 are single rings that display halos or additional low-amplitude rings, and 12 are single rings with at most tentative evidence of additional substructures. The fractional ring widths that we measured are significantly narrower than previously derived values, and they follow a distribution similar to the fractional widths of individual rings resolved in protoplanetary discs. However, there exists a population of rings in debris discs that are significantly wider than those in protoplanetary discs. We also find that discs with steep inner edges consistent with planet sculpting tend to be found at smaller (<100 au) radii, while more radially extended discs tend to have shallower edges more consistent with collisional evolution. An overwhelming majority of discs have radial profiles well-described by either a double power law or double-Gaussian parametrisation. While our findings suggest that it may be possible for some debris discs to inherit their structures directly from protoplanetary discs, there exists a sizeable population of broad debris discs that cannot be explained in this way. Assuming that the distribution of millimetre dust reflects the distribution of planetesimals, mechanisms that cause rings in protoplanetary discs to migrate or debris discs to broaden soon after formation may be at play, possibly mediated by planetary migration or scattering.

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arXiv2026

The ALMA survey to Resolve exoKuiper belt Substructures (ARKS) III: The vertical structure of debris disks

Debris disks -- collisionally sustained belts of dust and sometimes gas around main sequence stars -- are remnants of planet formation processes and are found in systems ${\gtrsim}10$ Myr old. Millimeter-wavelength observations are particularly important, as the grains probed by these observations are not strongly affected by radiation pressure and stellar winds, allowing them to probe the dynamics of large bodies producing dust. The ALMA survey to Resolve exoKuiper belt Substructures (ARKS) is analyzing high-resolution observations of 24 debris disks to enable the characterization of debris disk substructures across a large sample for the first time. For the most highly inclined disks, it is possible to recover the vertical structure of the disk. We aim to model and analyze the most highly inclined systems in the ARKS sample in order to uniformly extract the vertical dust distributions for a sample of well-resolved debris disks. We employed both parametric and nonparametric methods to constrain the vertical dust distributions for the most highly inclined ARKS targets. We find a broad range of aspect ratios, revealing a wide diversity in vertical structure, with a range of best-fit parametric values of $0.0026 \leq h_{\rm HWHM} \leq 0.193$ and a median best-fit value of $h_{\rm HWHM}=0.021$. The results obtained by nonparametric modeling are generally consistent with the parametric modeling results. We find that five of the 13 disks are consistent with having total disk masses less than that of Neptune (17 $M_{\oplus}$), assuming stirring by internal processes (self-stirring and collisional and frictional damping). Furthermore, most systems show a significant preference for a Lorentzian vertical profile rather than a Gaussian.

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arXiv2026

The ALMA survey to Resolve exoKuiper belt Substructures (ARKS) IX: Gas-driven origin for the continuum arc in the debris disc of HD 121617

Debris discs were long considered to be largely gas-free environments governed by collisional fragmentation, gravitational stirring, and radiative forces. Recent CO detections show that gas is present, but its abundance and origin remain uncertain. The ALMA survey to Resolve exoKuiper belt Substructures (ARKS) revealed a narrow gas and dust ring in the disc HD 121617 with an asymmetric arc 40% brighter than the rest of the ring. We aim to constrain the total gas mass in HD 121617 assuming the dust arc is produced by hydrodynamical gas-dust interactions. We used the Dusty FARGO-ADSG code, modelling dust as Lagrangian particles, including radiation pressure and dust feedback, and varying the total gas mass. Simulations were compared to observations using radiative transfer. An unstable gas ring creates a size-dependent radial and azimuthal dust trap whose efficiency depends on gas mass. Two models, with 50 and 5 Earth masses of gas, reproduce both the ALMA band 7 arc and the outward offset of the VLT/SPHERE scattered-light ring via gas drag and radiation pressure. We infer a conservative gas-mass range of 2.5 to 250 Earth masses. If the ALMA asymmetry is caused by gas drag, the required gas mass compared with the observed CO implies substantial H2, consistent with primordial gas. HD 121617 would then be a hybrid disc between protoplanetary and debris stages. Since a planet could also create an arc, future observations are needed to distinguish these scenarios.

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arXiv2025

Revealing the accelerating wind in the inner region of the colliding-wind binary WR 112

Colliding winds in massive binaries generate X-ray-bright shocks, synchrotron radio emission, and sometimes even dusty "pinwheel" spirals. We report the first X-ray detections of the dusty WC+O binary system WR 112 from Chandra and Swift, alongside 27 years of VLA/ATCA radio monitoring and new diffraction-limited Keck images. Because we view the nearly circular orbit almost edge-on, the colliding-wind zone alternates between heavy Wolf-Rayet wind self-absorption and a near-transparent O-star wind foreground each 20-yr orbit, producing phase-locked radio and X-ray variability. This scenario leads to a prediction that the radio spectral index is flatter from a larger non-thermal contribution around the radio intensity maximum, which is indeed observed. Existing models that assume a single dust-expansion speed fail to reproduce the combined infrared geometry and radio light curve. Instead, we require an accelerating post-shock flow that climbs from near-stationary to ~1350 km/s in about one orbital cycle, naturally matching the infrared spiral from about 5" down to within 0.1", while also fitting the phase of the radio brightening. These kinematic constraints supply critical boundary conditions for future hydrodynamic simulations, which can link hot-plasma cooling, non-thermal radio emission, X-ray spectra, and dust formation in a self-consistent framework. WR 112 thus joins WR 140, WR 104, and WR 70-16 (Apep) as a benchmark system for testing colliding-wind physics under an increasingly diverse range of orbital architectures and physical conditions.

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arXiv2025

Constraining properties of dust formed in Wolf-Rayet binary WR 112 using mid-infrared and millimeter observations

Binaries that host a carbon-rich Wolf-Rayet (WC) star and an OB-type companion can be copious dust producers. Yet the properties of dust, particularly the grain size distribution, in these systems remain uncertain. We present Band 6 observations of WR 112 by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array telescope (ALMA), which are the first millimeter observations of a WC binary system capable of resolving its dust emission. By combining ALMA observations with James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images, we were able to analyze the spatially resolved spectral energy distribution (SED) of WR 112. We found that the SEDs are consistent with emissions from hydrogen-poor amorphous carbon grains. Notably, our results also suggest that the majority of grains in the system have radii below one micrometer, and the extended dust structures are dominated by nanometer-sized grains. Among four parameterizations of the grain radius distribution that we tested, a bimodal distribution, with abundant nanometer-sized grains and a secondary population of 0.1-micron grains, best reproduces the observed SED. This bimodal distribution helps to reconcile the previously conflicting grain size estimates reported for WR 112 and for other WC systems. We hypothesize that dust destruction mechanisms such as radiative torque disruption and radiative-driven sublimation are responsible for driving the system to the bimodal grain size distribution.

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arXiv2025

The formation and evolution of dust in the colliding-wind binary Apep revealed by JWST

Carbon-rich Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are significant contributors of carbonaceous dust to the galactic environment, however the mechanisms and conditions for formation and subsequent evolution of dust around these stars remain open questions. Here we present JWST observations of the WR+WR colliding-wind binary Apep which reveal an intricate series of nested concentric dust shells that are abundant in detailed substructure. The striking regularity in these substructures between successive shells suggests an exactly repeating formation mechanism combined with a highly stable outflow that maintains a consistent morphology even after reaching 0.6 pc (assuming a distance of 2.4 kpc) into the interstellar medium. The concentric dust shells show subtle deviations from spherical outflow, which could reflect orbital modulation along the eccentric binary orbit or non-sphericity in the stellar wind. Tracking the evolution of dust across the multi-tiered structure, we measure the dust temperature evolution that can broadly be described assuming an amorphous carbon composition in radiative thermal equilibrium with the central stars. The temperature profile and orbital period place new distance constraints that support Apep being at a greater distance than previously estimated, reducing the line-of-sight and sky-plane wind speed discrepancy previously thought to characterise the system.

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arXiv2025

The Serpent Eating Its Own Tail: Dust Destruction in the Apep Colliding-Wind Nebula

Much of the carbonaceous dust observed in the early universe may originate from colliding wind binaries (CWBs) hosting hot, luminous Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars. Downstream of the shock between the stellar winds there exists a suitable environment for dust grain formation, and the orbital motion of the stars wraps this dust into richly structured spiral geometries. The Apep system is the most extreme WR-CWB in our Milky Way: two WR stars produce a complex spiral dust nebula, whose slow expansion has been linked to a gamma-ray burst progenitor. It has been unclear whether the O-type supergiant 0.7" distant from the WR+WR binary is physically associated with the system, and whether it affects the dusty nebula. Multi-epoch VLT/VISIR and JWST/MIRI observations show that this northern companion star routinely carves a cavity in the dust nebula - the first time such an effect has been observed in a CWB - which unambiguously associates the O star as a bound component to the Apep system. These observations are used together with a new geometric model to infer the cavity geometry and the orbit of the WR+WR binary, yielding the first strong constraints on wind and orbital parameters. We confirm an orbital period of over 190 years for the inner binary - nearly an order of magnitude longer than the next longest period dust-producing WR-CWB. This, together with the confirmed classification as a hierarchical triple, cements Apep as a singular astrophysical laboratory for studying colliding winds and the terminal life stages of the most massive star systems.

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arXiv2025

Carbon-rich dust injected into the interstellar medium by Galactic WC binaries survives for hundreds of years

Some carbon-rich Wolf-Rayet stars (WC stars) show an infrared excess from dust emission. Dust forms in the collision of the WC wind with a companion star's wind. As this dust is carried towards the ISM at close to the WCd wind speed and the binary continues through its orbit, a spiral structure forms around the system. The shape depends on the orbital eccentricity and period, as well as stellar parameters like mass-loss rates and terminal wind speeds. Imaging of the WCd binary WR 140 with JWST/MIRI revealed 17 concentric dust shells surrounding the binary. We present new JWST imaging of four additional WCd systems (WR 48a, WR 112, WR 125, and WR 137) that were imaged in 2024. In this analysis, we show that the dust is long-lived, detected with an age of at least 130 years, but more than 300 years in some systems. Longer duration measurements are limited by sensitivity. Regular spacing of dust features confirms the periodic nature of dust formation, consistent with a connection to binary motion. We use these images to estimate the proper motion of the dust, finding the dust to propagate out to the interstellar medium with motion comparable to the wind speed of the WC stars. In addition to these results, we observe unusual structures around WR 48a, which could represent dusty clumps shaped by photoevaporation and wind ablation like young proplyd objects. These results demonstrate that WC dust is indeed long-lived and should be accounted for in galactic dust budgets.

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arXiv2025

A PR drag origin for the Fomalhaut disk's pervasive inner dust: constraints on collisional strengths, icy composition, and embedded planets

Recent JWST observations of the Fomalhaut debris disk have revealed a significant abundance of dust interior to the outer planetesimal belt, raising questions about its origin and maintenance. In this study, we apply an analytical model to the Fomalhaut system, that simulates the dust distribution interior to a planetesimal belt, as collisional fragments across a range of sizes are dragged inward under Poynting-Robertson (PR) drag. We generate spectral energy distributions and synthetic JWST/MIRI images of the model disks, and perform an extensive grid search for particle parameters -- pertaining to composition and collisional strength -- that best match the observations. We find that a sound fit can be found for particle properties that involve a substantial water ice component, around 50%--80% by total volume, and a catastrophic disruption threshold, $Q_D^\star$, at a particle size of $D\!\approx\!30\,$um of 2--4$\,\times\,10^6\,$erg/g. Based on the expected dynamical depletion of migrating dust by an intervening planet we discount planets with masses $>1\,M_\mathrm{Saturn}$ beyond $\sim50\,$au in the extended disk, though a planet shepherding the inner edge of the outer belt of up to $\sim2\,M_\mathrm{Saturn}$ is reconcilable with the PR-drag-maintained disk scenario, contingent upon higher collisional strengths. These results indicate that PR drag transport from the outer belt alone can account for the high interior dust contents seen in the Fomalhaut system, which may thus constitute a common phenomenon in other belt-bearing systems. This establishes a framework for interpreting mid-planetary system dust around other stars, with our results for Fomalhaut providing a valuable calibration of the models.

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arXiv2025

Recovering the structure of debris disks non-parametrically from images

Debris disks common around Sun-like stars carry dynamical imprints in their structure that are key to understanding the formation and evolution history of planetary systems. In this paper, we extend an algorithm (rave) originally developed to model edge-on disks to be applicable to disks at all inclinations. The updated algorithm allows for non-parametric recovery of the underlying (i.e., deconvolved) radial profile and vertical height of optically thin, axisymmetric disks imaged in either thermal emission or scattered light. Application to simulated images demonstrates that the de-projection and deconvolution performance allows for accurate recovery of features comparable to or larger than the beam or PSF size, with realistic uncertainties that are independent of model assumptions. We apply our method to recover the radial profile and vertical height of a sample of 18 inclined debris disks observed with ALMA. Our recovered structures largely agree with those fitted with an alternative visibility-space de-projection and deconvolution method (frank). We find that for disks in the sample with a well-defined main belt, the belt radius, fractional width and fractional outer edge width all tend to increase with age, but do not correlate in a clear or monotonic way with dust mass or stellar temperature. In contrast, the scale height aspect ratio does not strongly correlate with age, but broadly increases with stellar temperature. These trends could reflect a combination of intrinsic collisional evolution in the disk and the interaction of perturbing planets with the disk's own gravity.

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arXiv2025

Dynamic Imprints of Colliding-wind Dust Formation from WR140

Carbon-rich Wolf-Rayet binaries are a prominent source of carbonaceous dust that contribute to the dust budget of galaxies. The "textbook" example of an episodic dust producing WR binary, WR140 (HD193793), provides us with an ideal laboratory for investigating the dust physics and kinematics in an extreme environment. This study is among the first to utilize two separate JWST observations, from Cycle 1 ERS (July 2022) and Cycle 2 (Sept. 2023), to measure WR140's dust kinematics and confirm its morphology. To measure the proper motions and projected velocities of the dust shells, we performed a novel PSF subtraction to reduce the effects of the bright diffraction spikes and carefully aligned the Cycle 2 to the Cycle 1 images. At 7.7 $\mu$m, through the bright feature common to 16 dust shells (C1), we find an average dust shell proper motion of $390\pm29$ mas yr$^{-1}$, which equates to a projected velocity of $2714\pm188$ km s$^{-1}$ at a distance of 1.64 kpc. Our measured speeds are constant across all visible shells and consistent with previously reported dust expansion velocities. Our observations not only prove that these dusty shells are astrophysical (i.e., not associated with any PSF artifact) and originate from WR140, but also confirm the "clumpy" morphology of the dust shells, in which identifiable substructures within certain shells persist for at least 14 months from one cycle to the next. These results support the hypothesis that clumping in the wind collision region is required for dust production in WR binaries.

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arXiv2023

A First Look with JWST Aperture Masking Interferometry (AMI): Resolving Circumstellar Dust around the Wolf-Rayet Binary WR 137 beyond the Rayleigh Limit

We present infrared aperture masking interferometry (AMI) observations of newly formed dust from the colliding winds of the massive binary system Wolf-Rayet (WR) 137 with JWST using the Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS). NIRISS AMI observations of WR 137 and a point-spread-function calibrator star, HD~228337, were taken using the F380M and F480M filters in 2022 July and August as part of the Director's Discretionary Early Release Science (DD-ERS) program 1349. Interferometric observables (squared visibilities and closure phases) from the WR 137 "interferogram" were extracted and calibrated using three independent software tools: ImPlaneIA, AMICAL, and SAMpip. The analysis of the calibrated observables yielded consistent values except for slightly discrepant closure phases measured by ImPlaneIA. Based on all three sets of calibrated observables, images were reconstructed using three independent software tools: BSMEM, IRBis, and SQUEEZE. All reconstructed image combinations generated consistent images in both F380M and F480M filters. The reconstructed images of WR 137 reveal a bright central core with a $\sim300$ mas linear filament extending to the northwest. A geometric colliding-wind model with dust production constrained to the orbital plane of the binary system and enhanced as the system approaches periapsis provided a general agreement with the interferometric observables and reconstructed images. Based on a colliding-wind dust condensation analysis, we suggest that dust formation within the orbital plane of WR 137 is induced by enhanced equatorial mass-loss from the rapidly rotating O9 companion star, whose axis of rotation is aligned with that of the orbit.

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arXiv2023

Deprojecting and constraining the vertical thickness of exoKuiper belts

Constraining the vertical and radial structure of debris discs is crucial to understanding their formation, evolution and dynamics. To measure both the radial and vertical structure, a disc must be sufficiently inclined. However, if a disc is too close to edge-on, deprojecting its emission becomes non-trivial. In this paper we show how Frankenstein, a non-parametric tool to extract the radial brightness profile of circumstellar discs, can be used to deproject their emission at any inclination as long as they are optically thin and axisymmetric. Furthermore, we extend Frankenstein to account for the vertical thickness of an optically thin disc ($H(r)$) and show how it can be constrained by sampling its posterior probability distribution and assuming a functional form (e.g. constant $h=H/r$), while fitting the radial profile non-parametrically. We use this new method to determine the radial and vertical structure of 16 highly inclined debris discs observed by ALMA. We find a wide range of vertical aspect ratios, $h$, ranging from $0.020\pm0.002$ (AU Mic) to $0.20\pm0.03$ (HD 110058), which are consistent with parametric models. We find a tentative correlation between $h$ and the disc fractional width, as expected if wide discs were more stirred. Assuming discs are self-stirred, the thinnest discs would require the presence of at least 500 km-sized planetesimals. The thickest discs would likely require the presence of planets. We also recover previously inferred and new radial structures, including a potential gap in the radial distribution of HD 61005. Finally, our new extension of Frankenstein also allows constraining how $h$ varies as a function of radius, which we test on 49 Ceti, finding that $h$ is consistent with being constant.

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arXiv2023

From Dust to Nanodust: Resolving Circumstellar Dust from the Colliding-Wind Binary Wolf-Rayet (WR) 140

Wolf-Rayet (WR) 140 is the archetypal periodic dust-forming colliding-wind binary that hosts a carbon-rich WR (WC) star and an O-star companion with an orbital period of 7.93 years and an orbital eccentricity of 0.9. Throughout the past several decades, multiple dust-formation episodes from WR 140 have been observed that are linked to the binary orbit and occur near the time of periastron passage. Given its predictable dust-formation episodes, WR 140 presents an ideal astrophysical laboratory for investigating the formation and evolution of dust in the hostile environment around a massive binary system. In this paper, we present near- and mid-infrared (IR) spectroscopic and imaging observations of WR 140 with Subaru/SCExAO+CHARIS, Keck/NIRC2+PyWFS, and Subaru/COMICS taken between 2020 June and Sept that resolve the circumstellar dust emission linked to its most recent dust-formation episode in 2016 Dec. Our spectral energy distribution (SED) analysis of WR 140's resolved circumstellar dust emission reveals the presence of a hot ($T_\mathrm{d}\sim1000$ K) near-IR dust component that is co-spatial with the previously known and cooler ($T_\mathrm{d}\sim500$ K) mid-IR dust component composed of $300-500$ {\AA}-sized dust grains. We attribute the hot near-IR dust emission to the presence of nano-sized ("nanodust") grains and suggest they were formed from grain-grain collisions or the rotational disruption of the larger grain size population by radiative torques in the strong radiation field from the central binary. Lastly, we speculate on the astrophysical implications of nanodust formation around colliding-wind WC binaries, which may present an early source of carbonaceous nanodust in the interstellar medium.

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