Discovery of the new class I methanol maser transition at 23.4 GHz

We report the first detection of a methanol maser in the 101–92 A- transition at 23.4 GHz,discovered during the H2O southern Galactic Plane Survey (HOPS) with the 22-m MopraRadio Telescope. In the region covered by HOPS, the 23.4-GHz maser was found at onlyone location, G357.97-0.16, which was also...

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Main Authors: Voronkov, M., Walsh, Andrew, Caswell, J., Ellingsen, S., Breen, S., Longmore, S., Purcell, C., Urquhart, J.
Format: Journal Article
Published: Oxford University Press 2011
Subjects:
Online Access:http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/413/4/2339.full.pdf+html
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/48002
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author Voronkov, M.
Walsh, Andrew
Caswell, J.
Ellingsen, S.
Breen, S.
Longmore, S.
Purcell, C.
Urquhart, J.
author_facet Voronkov, M.
Walsh, Andrew
Caswell, J.
Ellingsen, S.
Breen, S.
Longmore, S.
Purcell, C.
Urquhart, J.
author_sort Voronkov, M.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description We report the first detection of a methanol maser in the 101–92 A- transition at 23.4 GHz,discovered during the H2O southern Galactic Plane Survey (HOPS) with the 22-m MopraRadio Telescope. In the region covered by HOPS, the 23.4-GHz maser was found at onlyone location, G357.97-0.16, which was also a prominent source of maser emission in theJ2–J1 E series near 25 GHz. The Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) was used tofollowup these detections at high angular resolution and prove the maser nature of the observedemission. The analysis shows that the new methanol maser at 23.4 GHz is a class I maser,which has properties similar to the 9.9- and 25-GHz masers (i.e. traces strong shocks withhigher than average temperature and density). All class I masers were found to originate at thesame spatial location (within the measurement uncertainty of 0.5 arcsec) in the vicinity of thedominant infrared source, but at a clearly distinct position from nearby OH, H2O and class IImethanol masers at 6.7 GHz. All maser species are distributed approximately on a line, butit is not clear at present whether this has any physical significance. We also detected a weak(1.3 mJy) continuum source at 25 GHz near the OH maser (at the most northern site, associatedwith a class II methanol maser and an H2O maser renowned for its extremely wide spread ofvelocity components). The continuum source has not been reported at lower frequencies andis therefore a candidate hypercompact HII region.We also used the ATCA to find the strongestand only the fifth known 9.9-GHz maser towards G357.97-0.16 and another 23.4-GHz masertowards G343.12-0.06 not seen in HOPS.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
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publishDate 2011
publisher Oxford University Press
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-480022017-02-28T01:39:58Z Discovery of the new class I methanol maser transition at 23.4 GHz Voronkov, M. Walsh, Andrew Caswell, J. Ellingsen, S. Breen, S. Longmore, S. Purcell, C. Urquhart, J. ISM: molecules masers We report the first detection of a methanol maser in the 101–92 A- transition at 23.4 GHz,discovered during the H2O southern Galactic Plane Survey (HOPS) with the 22-m MopraRadio Telescope. In the region covered by HOPS, the 23.4-GHz maser was found at onlyone location, G357.97-0.16, which was also a prominent source of maser emission in theJ2–J1 E series near 25 GHz. The Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) was used tofollowup these detections at high angular resolution and prove the maser nature of the observedemission. The analysis shows that the new methanol maser at 23.4 GHz is a class I maser,which has properties similar to the 9.9- and 25-GHz masers (i.e. traces strong shocks withhigher than average temperature and density). All class I masers were found to originate at thesame spatial location (within the measurement uncertainty of 0.5 arcsec) in the vicinity of thedominant infrared source, but at a clearly distinct position from nearby OH, H2O and class IImethanol masers at 6.7 GHz. All maser species are distributed approximately on a line, butit is not clear at present whether this has any physical significance. We also detected a weak(1.3 mJy) continuum source at 25 GHz near the OH maser (at the most northern site, associatedwith a class II methanol maser and an H2O maser renowned for its extremely wide spread ofvelocity components). The continuum source has not been reported at lower frequencies andis therefore a candidate hypercompact HII region.We also used the ATCA to find the strongestand only the fifth known 9.9-GHz maser towards G357.97-0.16 and another 23.4-GHz masertowards G343.12-0.06 not seen in HOPS. 2011 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/48002 http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/413/4/2339.full.pdf+html Oxford University Press restricted
spellingShingle ISM: molecules
masers
Voronkov, M.
Walsh, Andrew
Caswell, J.
Ellingsen, S.
Breen, S.
Longmore, S.
Purcell, C.
Urquhart, J.
Discovery of the new class I methanol maser transition at 23.4 GHz
title Discovery of the new class I methanol maser transition at 23.4 GHz
title_full Discovery of the new class I methanol maser transition at 23.4 GHz
title_fullStr Discovery of the new class I methanol maser transition at 23.4 GHz
title_full_unstemmed Discovery of the new class I methanol maser transition at 23.4 GHz
title_short Discovery of the new class I methanol maser transition at 23.4 GHz
title_sort discovery of the new class i methanol maser transition at 23.4 ghz
topic ISM: molecules
masers
url http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/413/4/2339.full.pdf+html
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/48002