Disks around T tauri stars with SPHERE (DARTTS-S). I. SPHERE/IRDIS polarimetric imaging of eight prominent T tauri disks

We present the first part of our Disks ARound T Tauri Stars with SPHERE (DARTTS-S) survey: observations of eight T Tauri stars that were selected based on their strong (sub)millimeter excesses using SPHERE/IRDIS polarimetric differential imaging in the J and H bands. All observations successfully detect the disks, which appear vastly different in size, from approximate to 80 au in scattered light to >400 au, and display total polarized disk fluxes between 0.06% and 0.89% of the stellar flux. For five of these disks, we are able to determine the three-dimensional structure and the flaring of the disk surface, which appears to be relatively consistent across the different disks, with flaring exponents a between approximate to 1.1 and approximate to 1.6. We also confirm literature results with regard to the inclination and position angle of several of our disks and are able to determine which side is the near side of the disk in most cases. While there is a clear trend of disk mass with stellar ages (approximate to 1 to >10Myr), no correlations of disk structures with age were found. There are also no correlations with either stellar mass or submillimeter flux. We do not detect significant differences between the J and H bands. However, we note that while a high fraction (7/8) of the disks in our sample show ring-shaped substructures, none of them display spirals, in contrast to the disks around more massive Herbig Ae/Be stars, where spiral features are common.European Commission Sixth Framework Programme as part of the Optical Infrared Coordination Network for Astronomy (OPTICON) RII3-Ct-2004-001566 European Commission Seventh Framework Programme as part of the Optical Infrared Coordination Network for Astronomy (OPTICON) 226604 312430 Millennium Science Initiative (Chilean Ministry of Economy) RC130007 FONDECYT 3150643 Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF CONICYT through FONDECYT grant 3170657 project CONICYT PAI/Concurso Nacional Insercion en la Academia, convocatoria 2015 79150049 ICM Nucleo Milenio de Formacion Planetaria, NPF ANR of France ANR-16-CE31-0013 Australian Research Council (ARC) FT170100040 CONICYT FONDECYT grant 1171624 Millennium Nucleus RC130007 CONICYT-Gemini grant 3213000