A single circumstellar disk in the SVS 13 close binary system

We present Very Large Array observations at 7 mm of the sources IRAS 2A, IRAS 2B, MMS 2, MMS 3, and SVS 13, in the NGC 1333 region. SVS 13 is a young close binary system whose components are separated by 65 AU in projection. Our high angular resolution observations reveal that only one of the components of the SVS 13 system (VLA 4B) is associated with detectable circumstellar dust emission. This result is in contrast with the well-known case of L1551 IRS 5, a binary system of two protostars separated by 45 AU, where each component is associated with a disk of dust. In both SVS 13 and in L1551 IRS 5 the emission apparently arises from compact accretion disks, smaller than those observed around single stars, but still massive enough to form planetary systems like the solar one. These observational results confirm that the formation of planets can occur in close binary systems, either in one or in both components of the system, depending on the specific angular momentum of the infalling material.