Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T05:13:33.461Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

OH Megamasers and Active Galactic Nuclei

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2017

R.P. Norris*
Affiliation:
CSIRO Division of Radiophysics, PO Box 76, Epping, NSW 2121, Australia

Abstract

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.

OH megamasers are believed to be active galaxies in which a substantial fraction of the OH gas in the disk of the galaxy is stimulated by the intense far-infrared flux from the active nucleus. The result is that the galactic disk acts as a maser amplifier, producing in the OH line an amplified image of the radio continuum source in the nucleus. Megamasers promise to be powerful tools for the study of active galaxies, provided we can determine what it is that turns an active galaxy into a megamaser. Here I examine the archetypal megamaser galaxy Arp220 and ask the question: what makes it different from other active galaxies?

Type
Galactic
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1988 

References

Baan, W.A., Wood, P.A.D., & Haschick, A.D., 1982, Astrophys. J., 260, L49.Google Scholar
Joseph, R.D., Wright, G.S., & Wade, R., 1984, Nature, 311, 132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norris, R.P., Baan, W.A., Haschick, A.D., Booth, R.S., & Diamond, P.J., 1985, Mon. Not. R. astr. Soc., 213, 821.Google Scholar
Norris, R.P., Whiteoak, J.B., Gardner, F.F., Allen, D.A., & Roche, P.F., 1986, Mon. Not. R. astr. Soc., 221, 51p.Google Scholar
Norris, R.P., 1987, Mon. Not. R. astr. Soc., in press.Google Scholar
Soifer, B.T., Helou, G., Lonsdale, C.J., Neugebauer, G., Hacking, P., Houck, J.R., Low, F.J., Rice, W., & Rowan-Robinson, M., 1984, Astrophys. J., 283, L1.Google Scholar