Observations of 51 Ophiuchi with MIDI at the VLTI

Abstract

We present interferometric observations of the Be star 51 Ophiuchi. These observations were obtained during the science demonstration phase of the MIDI instrument at the VLTI in June 2003. The baseline UT1-UT3 was used, corresponding to 102 m. It is currently known that this object presents a circumstellar dust and gas disk that shows a very different composition from other Herbig Ae disks. The nature of the 51 Oph system is still a mystery to be solved. Observations with MIDI at the VLTI allowed us to reach high-angular resolution (20 mas). We have several uv points that allowed us to constrain the disk model. We have modeled 51 Oph visibilities and were able to constrain the size and geometry of the 51 Oph circumstellar disk. © 2007 Springer.