Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T20:31:59.155Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Megamasers in Active Galactic Nuclei

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2015

R. J. Cohen
R. J. Cohen*
Affiliation:
University of ManchesterJodrell Bank, Macclesfield, Cheshire SK11 9DL, UK

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Extragalactic masers were discovered more than 20 years ago (Whiteoak & Gardner 1973). It soon became apparent that those extragalactic masers we can detect are intrinsically very powerful and are located in galactic nuclei. The term Megamaser was coined to describe the most luminous OH masers, which are a million times more powerful than any OH masers within our own Galaxy (Baan & Haschick 1984). The same word is nowadays applied to any powerful maser associated with an active galactic nucleus (AGN). Whereas normal Galactic masers would be barely detectable outside the Local Group, megamasers are detectable in principle out to redshifts of z ~ 2 (Baan 1997). The galaxies hosting megamasers in their nuclei are invariably active in some degree: they include ultraluminous infrared galaxies, starbursts and Seyfert galaxies.

Type
II. Joint Discussions
Information
Highlights of Astronomy , Volume 11 , Issue 2: Highlights of Astronomy. As presented at the XXIIIrd General Assembly of the IAU (Part B), 1997 , 1998 , pp. 938 - 941
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1998

References

Baan, W. A., (1997) Megamasers, in High Sensitivity Radio Astronomy, pp. 73–82, eds. Davis, R J and Jackson, N J, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Baan, W. A. and Haschick, A. D., (1984) ApJ, 279, 541–549 Google Scholar
Baan, W. A. and Haschick, A. D., (1995) ApJ, 454, 745–748 Google Scholar
Baan, W. A. and Haschick, A., (1996) ApJ, 473, 269–278 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baan, W. A., Haschick, A. D. and Uglesich, R., (1993) ApJ, 415, 140–149 Google Scholar
Baan, W. A., Wood, P. A. D. and Haschick, A. D., (1982) ApJ, 260, L49–L52 Google Scholar
Braatz, J. A., Wilson, A. S. and Henkel, C., (1996) ApJSS, 106, 51–64 Google Scholar
Braatz, J. A., Wilson, A. S. and Henkel, C., (1997) ApJSS, 110, 321–346 Google Scholar
Claussen, M. J. and Lo, K. Y., (1986) ApJ, 308, 592–599 Google Scholar
Gallimorc, J. F., Baum, S. A., O’Dea, C. P., Brinks, E. and Pedlar, A., (1996) ApJ, 462, 740–745 Google Scholar
Greenhill, L. J., Gwinri, C. R., Antonucci, R. and Barvainis, R., (1996) ApJ, 472, L21–L24 Google Scholar
Haschick, A. D., Baan, W. A. and Peng, E. W., (1994) ApJ, 437, L35–L38 Google Scholar
Henkel, C., Baan, W. A. and Mauersberger, R., (1993) A&AR, 3, 47–90 Google Scholar
Killcen, N. E. B., Staveley-Smith, L., Wilson, W. E. and Sault, R. J., (1996) MNRAS, 280, 1143–1154 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knappen, J. H., Laine, S., Yates, J. A., Robinson, A., Richards, A. M. S., Doyen, R. and Nadeau, D., (1997) ApJ, in press.Google Scholar
Lonsdale, C. J., Diamond, P. J., Smith, H. E. and Lonsdale, C. J., (1994) Nature, 370, 117–120 Google Scholar
Miyoshi, M., Moran, J., Hernstein, J., Greenhill, L., Nakai, N., Diamond, P. and Inoue, M., (1995) Nature, 373, 127–129 Google Scholar
Montgomery, A. S. and Cohen, R. J., (1992) MNRAS, 254, 23P–26P Google Scholar
Moorwood, A. F. M., Lutz, D., Oliva, E., Marconi, A., Netzer, H., Genzel, R., Sturm, E. and de Graauw, Th., (1996) ABA, 315, L109–L112 Google Scholar
Nakai, N., Inoue, M. and Miyoshi, M., (1993) Nature, 361, 45–47 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanders, D. B. and Mirabel, I. F., (1996) ARAA, 34, 749–792 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scoville, N. Z., Sanders, D. B., Sargent, A. I., Soifer, B. T., Scott, S. L. and Lo, K. Y., (1986) ApJ, 311, L47–L50 Google Scholar
Skinner, C. J., Smith, H. A., Sturm, E., Barlow, M. J., Cohen, R. J. and Stacey, G. J., (1997) Nature, 386, 472–474 Google Scholar
Staveley-Smith, L., Cohen, R. J., Chapman, J. M., Pointon, L. and Unger, S. W., (1987) MNRAS, 226, 689–701 Google Scholar
Sturm, E., Lutz, D., Genzel, R., Sternberg, A., Egami, E., Kunze, D., Rigopoulou, D., Bauer, O. H., Feuchtgruber, H., Moorwood, A. F. M. and de Graauw, Th., (1996) ABA, 315, L133–L136 Google Scholar
Trotter, A. S., Moran, J. M., Greenhill, L. J., Zheng, X. W. and Gwinn, C. R., (1997) ApJ, 485, L79–L82 Google Scholar
van der Kruit, P. C., Oort, J. H. and Mathewson, D. S., (1972) A&A, 21, 169–184 Google Scholar
Watson, W. D. and Wallin, B. K., (1994) ApJ, 432, L35–L38 Google Scholar
Whiteoak, J. B. and Gardner, F. F., (1973) Astrophys. Lett, 15, 211–215 Google Scholar