A submillimetre survey for protostellar accretion discs using the JCMT-CSO interferometer

We present a submillimetre continuum survey for accretion discs around seven embedded protostars in the Perseus and Serpens molecular clouds. Observations were made at frequencies between 339 and 357 GHz using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope-Caltech Submillimeter Observatory single-baseline interferometer on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. All the objects in our survey show compact dust emission on scales less than or similar to1 arcsec, assumed to arise in a circumstellar accretion disc. We compare the properties of this compact component with evolutionary indicators, such as the ratio of compact to extended emission, and bolometric temperature. We find that discs of mass similar to0.01M(circle dot) have formed by the Class 0 stage, and that similar mass discs are observed in Class I and Class II sources. A trend is observed whereby the ratio of compact to extended emission in our sources increases from Class 0 to Class II sources. For three of the objects in the survey, NGC 1333 IRAS2:CR1 and SVS13 in Perseus, and FIRS1 in Serpens, the signal-to-noise ratio is sufficient to allow us to model the brightness distributions with elliptical Gaussian and power-law disc models. The Gaussian fits give semimajor half-power radii of approximately 90 to 140 au, at the assumed distance of 350 pc to the Perseus and Serpens clouds.