Discovery of Water Maser Emission in Five AGN and a Possible Correlation Between Water Maser and Nuclear 2-10 keV Luminosities

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dc.creatorKondratko, Paul T.
dc.creatorGreenhill, Lincoln J.
dc.creatorMoran, James M.
dc.date2006-10-03
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T10:40:20Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T10:40:20Z
dc.descriptionWe report the discovery of water maser emission in five active galactic nuclei (AGN) with the 100-m Green Bank Telescope (GBT). The positions of the newly discovered masers, measured with the VLA, are consistent with the optical positions of the host nuclei to within 1 sigma (0.3 arcsec radio and 1.3 arcsec optical) and most likely mark the locations of the embedded central engines. The spectra of three sources, 2MASX J08362280+3327383, NGC 6264, and UGC 09618 NED02, display the characteristic spectral signature of emission from an edge-on accretion disk with maximum orbital velocity of ~700, ~800, and ~1300 km s^-1, respectively. We also present a GBT spectrum of a previously known source MRK 0034 and interpret the narrow Doppler components reported here as indirect evidence that the emission originates in an edge-on accretion disk with orbital velocity of ~500 km s^-1. We obtained a detection rate of 12 percent (5 out of 41) among Seyfert 2 and LINER systems with 10000 km s^-1 < v_sys < 15000 km s^-1. For the 30 nuclear water masers with available hard X-ray data, we report a possible relationship between unabsorbed X-ray luminosity (2-10 keV) and total isotropic water maser luminosity, L_{2-10} proportional to L_{H2O}^{0.5+-0.1}, consistent with the model proposed by Neufeld and Maloney in which X-ray irradiation and heating of molecular accretion disk gas by the central engine excites the maser emission.
dc.description16 pages, 5 tables, 3 figures, to appear in the November 10, 2006, v651n2 issue of the Astrophysical Journal
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0610060
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0610060
dc.identifierAstrophys.J.652:136-145,2006
dc.identifierdoi:10.1086/507885
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/181307
dc.subjectAstrophysics
dc.titleDiscovery of Water Maser Emission in Five AGN and a Possible Correlation Between Water Maser and Nuclear 2-10 keV Luminosities
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