X-ray vs. water maser emission in AGN

TL;DR

This study systematically investigates the relationship between X-ray and water maser emissions in AGN, using Swift satellite data to improve detection strategies and understand the properties of maser-hosting AGN.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive survey of water maser sources with X-ray observations, providing new statistical insights and high detection rates at hard X-ray energies.

Findings

High XRT detection rate of water maser sources

Refined follow-up strategies for galaxy nuclei

Exceptional detection rate in BAT 22-month survey

Abstract

Correlations between X-ray and water maser emission in AGN have been recently reported. However, the lack of systematic studies affects the confidence level of these results. In the following, we introduce a project aimed at studying all the water maser sources believed to be associated with AGN activity through X-ray data obtained with the XRT and BAT instruments on-board the Swift satellite. Preliminary results of this work indicate a promising rate of XRT detections allowing us to refine follow-up observing strategies focused on investigating the nuclei of individual galaxies and deriving, on statistical basis, the main characteristics of water maser hosts. In addition, a cross-correlation between our sample and the BAT 22-months all-sky survey provides an exceptionally high detection rate at hard X-ray energies when compared to other AGN-related catalogs.