The physical parameters of clumps associated with class I methanol masers

We present a study of the association between class I methanol masers and cold dust clumps from the ATLASGAL survey. It was found that almost 100% of class I methanol masers are associated with objects listed in the ATLASGAL compact source catalog. We find a statistically significant difference in the flux density, luminosity, number and column density and temperature distributions of ATLASGAL sources associated with 95/44 GHz methanol masers compared with those ATLASGAL sources devoid of 95 GHz methanol masers. The masers tend to arise in clumps with higher densities, luminosities and temperatures compared with both the full sample of ATLASGAL clumps, as well as the sample of ATLASGAL sources that were cross-matched with positions previously searched for methanol masers but with no detections. Comparison between the peak position of ATLASGAL clumps and the interferometric positions of the associated class I and II methanol masers reveals that class I masers are generally located at larger physical distances from the peak submillimetre emission than class II masers. We conclude that the tight association between ATLASGAL sources and class I methanol masers may be used as a link toward understanding the conditions of the pumping of these masers and evolutionary stages at which they appear

Recent updates on the Maser Monitoring Organisation

The Maser Monitoring Organisation (M2O) is a research community of telescope operators, astronomy researchers and maser theoreticians pursuing a joint goal of reaching a deeper understanding of maser emission and exploring its variety of uses as tracers of astrophysical events. These proceedings detail the origin, motivations and current status of the M2O, as was introduced at the 2021 EVN symposium

Molecular gas in high-mass filament WB673

We studied the distribution of dense gas in a filamentary molecular cloud containing several dense clumps. The center of the filament is given by the dense clump WB673. The clumps are high-mass and intermediate-mass starforming regions. We observed CS (2-1), 13CO (1-0), C18O(1-0), and methanol lines at 96 GHz toward WB673 with the Onsala Space Observatory 20-m telescope. We found CS (2-1) emission in the inter-clump medium so the clumps are physically connected and the whole cloud is indeed a filament. Its total mass is 104 M⊙ and mass-to-length ratio is 360M⊙ pc−1 from 13CO (1-0) data. Mass-to-length ratio for the dense gas is 3.4 − 34M⊙ pc−1 from CS (2-1) data. The PV-diagram of the filament is V-shaped. We estimated physical conditions in the molecular gas using methanol lines. Location of the filament on the sky between extended shells suggests that it could be a good example to test theoretical models of formation of the filaments via multiple compression of interstellar gas by supersonic waves

Water masers as an early tracer of star formation

We present a study of correlation between 22 GHz water maser emission and far infrared/submillimeter (IR/sub-mm) sources. The generalized linear model (GLM) is used to predict H2O maser detection in a particular source with defined physical parameters. We checked the GLM predictions by observing a sample of selected sources with the Effelsberg 100-m telescope. In total, 359 sources were observed. The H2O masers were detected in 123 sources, with 59 new detections. We found 22 sources with a significant flux variability. Using the GLM analysis, we estimate that 2392±339 star formation regions (SFRs) in the Galaxy may harbour H2O masers detectable for single-dish observations at the noise level of ∼ 0.05 Jy. Analyzing the luminosity to mass ratio (L/M) of the ATLASGAL and Hi-GAL clumps associated with different maser species, we find that 22 GHz water masers have significantly lower values of L/M in comparison to 6.7 GHz class II methanol and 1665 MHz OH masers. This implies that 22 GHz water masers may appear prior to 6.7 GHz methanol and OH masers in the evolutionary sequence of SFRs. From the analysis of physical offsets between host clumps and maser interferometric positions, we found no significant difference between H2O and class II methanol maser offsets against host clump position. We conclude that the tight association between water masers and IR/sub-mm sources may provide insight into the pumping conditions of these masers and evolutionary stages of their onset