2008/08/19 by Jeremy Darling, Crystal Brogan, Kelsey Johnson · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Green Bank Telescope #Interstellar medium #Line (geometry) #Luminous infrared galaxy #Maser #Megamaser #Star formation #Telescope #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/592294
4 pages, 2 figures, accepted by ApJ Letters
arxiv created 2008/08/19 · openalex publication_date 2008/08/21 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We report the detection of water maser emission from four nearby galaxies hosting ultradense H II (UDHII) regions, He 2-10, the Antennae galaxies (NGC 4038/4039), NGC 4214, and NGC 5253, with the Green Bank Telescope. Our detection rate is 100%, and all of these H 2 O "kilomasers" ( L H 2 O < 10 L ☉ ) are located toward regions of known star formation as traced by UDHII regions and bright 24 μm emission. Some of the newly discovered H 2 O masers have luminosities 1-2 orders of magnitude less than previous extragalactic studies and the same order of magnitude as those typical of Galactic massive star-forming regions. The unusual success of this minisurvey suggests that H 2 O maser emission may be very common in starburst galaxies, and the paucity of detections to date is due to a lack of sufficient sensitivity. While the galaxy sample was selected by the presence of UDHII regions, and the UDHII regions lie within the telescope beam, in the absence of H 2 O spectral line maps the connection between H 2 O masers and UDHII regions has not yet been demonstrated.