SIMBA's view of the epsilon Eri disk

Abstract

We present the first observational confirmation for an extended circumstellar dust disk around epsilon 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 27.4 arcsec 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 arcsec. 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.