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Interferometry of class I methanol masers, statistics and the distance scale

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 July 2018

Maxim A. Voronkov
Affiliation:
CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science, PO Box 76, Epping, NSW 1710, Australia email: maxim.voronkov@csiro.au School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Tasmania, GPO Box 252-37, Hobart, Tas 7000, Australia
Shari L. Breen
Affiliation:
Sydney Institute for Astronomy (SIfA), School of Physics, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Tasmania, GPO Box 252-37, Hobart, Tas 7000, Australia
Simon P. Ellingsen
Affiliation:
School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Tasmania, GPO Box 252-37, Hobart, Tas 7000, Australia
Christopher H. Jordan
Affiliation:
International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, Curtin University, Bentley, WA 6845, Australia
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Abstract

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The Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) participated in a number of survey programs to search for and image common class I methanol masers (at 36 and 44 GHz) with high angular resolution. In this paper, we discuss spatial and velocity distributions revealed by these surveys. In particular, the number of maser regions is found to fall off exponentially with the linear distance from the associated young stellar object traced by the 6.7-GHz maser, and the scale of this distribution is 263±15 milliparsec. Although this relationship still needs to be understood in the context of the broader field, it can be utilised to estimate the distance using methanol masers only. This new technique has been analysed to understand its limitations and future potential. It turned out, it can be very successful to resolve the ambiguity in kinematic distances, but, in the current form, is much less accurate (than the kinematic method) if used on its own.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2018 

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