SUBMILLIMETER PHOTOMETRY AND DISK MASSES OF T-TAURI DISK SYSTEMS

We present submillimeter photometric measurements of T Tauri stars which are suspected of having circumstellar disks. The sources T Tau, HL Tau, DG Tau, HK Tau, DO Tau, GM Aur in Taurus-Auriga and VSSG 23 in Ophiuchus were detected. For the most luminous sources, detections were obtained at all of the observed wavelengths (1100, 800, 600, 450, and 350 μm); for the less luminous sources, detections were obtained only at the longer wavelengths (usually 800 and 1100 μm). We interpret the submillimeter emission as arising from circumstellar disks and we derive estimates for the disk mass MD which are found to be in the range 0.05 M⊙ ≤ MD ≤ 1.0 M⊙ (for an opacity law of the form kv v2 at low frequencies). These disk masses are larger than the "minimum-mass" solar nebula and suggest that planets can form in these systems.