Limits on the Gas Disk Content of Two "Evolved" T Tauri Stars

Abstract

We derived upper limits of the circumstellar gas disk masses around the T Tauri stars St 34 and RX J0432.8+1735 in order to place constraints on theories of planet formation and to explore the evolution of the gas-to-dust ratio during the epoch of disk dissipation around young sun-like stars. Since sub-millimeter lines of ^{12}CO trace of the cold, outer regions of circumstellar disks, we observed ^{12}CO J=2-1 emission with the 10 m Sub-Millimeter Telescope (SMT) for two carefully chosen targets. St 34 is a rare classical T Tauri star with an age of 8\pm3 Myr, and RX J0432.8+1735 is a rare weak-emission T Tauri star with far-infrared excess. Both exhibit radial space motion enabling us to distinguish disk emission from ambient cloud material. Assuming a ^{12}CO excitation temperature of 20 K, a ^{12}CO line-width of 5 km s^{-1}, and optically-thin emission, we derive 3{\sigma} upper limits on the H_{2} circumstellar disk mass for St 34 and RX J0432.8+1735 to be <4.20 M\odot for both disks. Placing these results in the context of other studies, we discuss their implications on planet formation models.