Letter to the Editor

SIMBA's view of the ϵ Eri disk^*

¹ Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
² Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Astronomisches Institut, Universitätsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany
³ California Institute of Technology, 1201 E California Blvd, Mail code 105-24, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
⁴ Isaac-Newton-Group of Telescopes, Apartado de Correos 321, 38700 Santa Cruz de La Palma, Spain

Corresponding author: O. Schütz, schuetz@mpia.de

Received: 6 November 2003
Accepted: 5 December 2003

Abstract

We present the first observational confirmation for an extended circumstellar dust disk around ϵ Eri. The observations were obtained with the bolometer array SIMBA at the 15 m radio telescope SEST in Chile and measure the dust continuum at 1.2 mm. The emission, with a total flux of 21.4 mJy and a rms of 2.2 mJy/beam, is resolved to a deconvolved size of 274 which corresponds to 88 AU. No clear indication for a ring-like disk structure is seen, possibly also due to the telescope's large beam width of 24''. Models of the object's spectral energy distribution from IR to mm-wavelengths show that the emission can also be explained by a simple disk model. We further demonstrate the strong influence of noise and propose to be cautious with interpretations of the ring substructure.