Although T Tauri is one of the most studied young objects in astronomy , the nature of its circumstellar environment remains elusive due , in part , to the small angular separation of its three components ( North-South and South a-b are separated by 0.68 ” and 0.12 ” respectively ) .
Taking advantage of incredibly stable , high Strehl , PSFs obtained with Mid-IR adaptive optics at the 6.5 meter MMT , we are able to resolve the system on and off the 10 µm silicate dust feature ( 8.7µm , 10.55µm , and 11.86µm ; 10 % bandwidth ) , and broad N. At these wavelengths , South a-b are separated by only \sim 0.3 \lambda / D .
This paper describes a robust Markov Chain Monte Carlo technique to separate all three components astrometrically and photometrically , for the first time , in the mid-IR .
Our results show that the silicate feature previously observed in the unresolved T Tau South binary is dominated by T Tau Sa ’ s absorption , while Sb does not appear to have a significant feature .
This suggests that a large circumbinary disk around Sa-Sb is not likely the primary source of cool dust in our line-of-sight , and that T Tau Sa is enshrouded by a nearly edge-on circumstellar disk .
Surprisingly , T Tau Sb does not appear to have a similarly oriented disk .