Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21733102f&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #217, #331.02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
The 51 --> 60 A+ transition of methanol at 6.7 GHz is among the strongest galactic masers known, and uniquely traces sites of high-mass star formation. Over 800 of these masers have been detected and studied in our galaxy and three in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Methanol masers are observed spatially near OH and H2O masers. The large number of galactic masers and the existence of luminous extragalactic H2O and OH megamasers have given the motivation to search for 6.7 GHz maser emission in extragalactic sources. Several surveys have been conducted to find extragalactic methanol, using H2O and OH megamaser emission as selection criteria. However, none of the surveys have been successful. In 2008, we conducted a survey with the 100-m Effelsberg telescope in Germany towards a sample of AGN selected for being Compton thick and for having a previous detection of molecular lines. This survey produced a detection of the 6.7 GHz transition in absorption towards NGC 3079 and a tentative detection in emission towards Markarian 3. Markarian 3 was observed again in 2009 with the EVLA to independently confirm the tentative line. We report here the detection of an emission line feature at the systemic velocity of the galaxy. With a line peak of 2 mJy, the emission matches the line observed with Effelsberg within 40 km/s. However, due to the low signal-to-noise of our observations, the detection remains tentative. If real, the line would correspond to an intrinsic maser luminosity of 1.9 Lsolar. This would be the most luminous methanol maser known with a factor of 106 more luminous than galactic masers. This would open up the exciting possibility of a new class of methanol masers, possibly associated with AGN activity.
Fletcher Corinne
Impellizzeri Violetta
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