Mapping and monitoring observations of SiO maser sources near the Galactic
center were made with the Nobeyama 45-m telescope at 43 GHz. Rectangular
mapping an area of approximately 200'' x 100''$ in a 30'' grid, and triangular
mapping in a 20'' grid toward the Galactic center, resulted in 15 detections of
SiO sources; the positions of the sources were obtained with errors of 5--10'',
except for a few weak sources. Three-year monitoring observations found that
the component at V_lsr=-27 km/s of IRS 10 EE flared to about 1.5 Jy during 2000
March--May, which was a factor of more than 5 brighter than its normal
intensity. Using the radial velocities and positions of the SiO sources, we
identified 5 which are counterparts of previously observed OH 1612 MHz sources.
The other 10 SiO sources have no OH counterparts, but two were previously
detected with VLA, and four are located close to the positions of
large-amplitude variables observed at near-infrared wavelengths. A
least-squares fit to a plot of velocities versus Galactic longitudes gives a
rather high speed for the rotation of the star cluster around the Galactic
center. The observed radial-velocity dispersion is roughly consistent with a
value obtained before. It was found that all of the SiO sources with OH 1612
MHz counterparts have periods of light variation longer than 450 days, while
SiO sources without OH masers often have periods shorter than 450 days. This
fact suggests that lower-mass AGB stars are more often detected in SiO masers
than in the OH 1612 MHz line.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures. PASJ 54, No. 1 (2002) in pres
