2000A&A...361L...9P

We report in this letter the first resolved images of the circumstellar dust disk around the Pre-Main-Sequence star HD 100546. These near-infrared images were obtained in J and short K bands with the adaptive optics system ADONIS at the ESO observatory. A bright disk extending 2 arcsec (200AU) far from the star and viewed with an inclination with respect to the line of sight around 50 degrees is revealed by the observations. Using a simplified model of light scattering, we find that the dust disk density peaks at a distance of 40AU from the star, and the FWHM of this dense ring is typically 20AU. This type of disk is believed to be a denser precursor of β Pictoris-like main-sequence disks. The structure of the disk is compared with the best known example of the class of ``debris disks'', the disk surrounding β Pictoris.