OH counterparts for H_ 2O masers in the Galactic center: evolved stars instead of signs of recent star formation

Lorant O. Sjouwerman (1,2,3) & Huib Jan van Langevelde(4,5,6)

(1) Onsala Space Observatory, 439 92 Onsala, Sweden (2) Sterrewacht Leiden (3) sjouwerm@oso.chalmers.se (4) Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe, P.O. Box 2, 7990 AA Dwingeloo, the Netherlands (5) huib@nfra.nl (6) temporarily at N.R.A.O., P.O. Box 0, Socorro, 87801 NM, USA

Paper: ApJ 461 L41 April 10, 1996

Weblink: http://www.aas.org/ApJ/v461n1/5798/sc0.html


Abstract:

We present the detection of OH maser emission associated with the H_2O masers recently found in the Galactic center by Levine et al. (1995) and by Yusef-Zadeh & Mehringer (1995). The 1612 MHz OH masers were found in high-sensitivity maps created by combining 17 VLA observations taken by Van Langevelde et al. (1993) as well as in new observations with the ATCA. Both Levine et al. (1995) and Yusef-Zadeh & Mehringer (1995) consider the H_2O emission to be clues for recent massive star formation, by associating it with a supergiant and an H2 region. The newly found OH masers show the typical double peaked spectra for evolved oxygen-rich stars and do not stand out amongst other OH/IR stars in this region, neither in H_2O nor OH maser characteristics. We conclude that the H_2O maser detections are associated with evolved, low to intermediate mass stars and that these H_2O masers thus cannot be regarded as signposts for massive young stars or star forming regions.


Preprints available from the authors at sjouwerm@sigyn.oso.chalmers.se , or the raw TeX (no figures) if you click here.

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