A 95 GHz Class I Methanol Maser Survey Toward A Sample of GLIMPSE Point Sources Associated with BGPS Clumps

TL;DR

This survey used the PMO 13.7-m telescope to detect class I methanol masers at 95 GHz in sources selected from GLIMPSE and BGPS data, revealing correlations with BGPS properties and proposing efficient selection criteria.

Contribution

The paper introduces a new survey targeting class I methanol masers using combined IR and millimeter data, and develops criteria to efficiently identify likely maser sources.

Findings

29% detection rate of class I methanol masers in the sample.

Maser intensity correlates with BGPS source properties, not IR brightness.

Proposed criteria can detect 90% of masers with 75% efficiency.

Abstract

We report a survey with the Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO) 13.7-m radio telescope for class I methanol masers from the 95 GHz (8_0 - 7_1 A^+) transition. The 214 target sources were selected by combining information from both the Spitzer GLIMPSE and 1.1 mm BGPS survey catalogs. The observed sources satisfy both the GLIMPSE mid-IR criteria of [3.6]-[4.5]>1.3, [3.6]-[5.8]>2.5, [3.6]-[8.0]>2.5 and 8.0 um magnitude less than 10, and also have an associated 1.1 mm BGPS source. Class I methanol maser emission was detected in 63 sources, corresponding to a detection rate of 29% for this survey. For the majority of detections (43), this is the first identification of a class I methanol maser associated with these sources. We show that the intensity of the class I methanol maser emission is not closely related to mid-IR intensity or the colors of the GLIMPSE point sources, however, it is closely correlated with properties (mass and beam-averaged column density) of the BGPS sources. Comparison of measures of star formation activity for the BGPS sources with and without class I methanol masers indicate that the sources with class I methanol masers usually have higher column density and larger flux density than those without them. Our results predict that the criteria log(S_{int})<-38.0+1.72log(N_{H_{2}}^{beam}) and log(N_{H_{2}}^{beam})>22.1, which utilizes both the integrated flux density (S_{int}) and beam-averaged column density (N_{H_{2}}^{beam}) of the BGPS sources, are very efficient for selecting sources likely to have an associated class I methanol maser. Our expectation is that searches using these criteria will detect 90% of the predicted number of class I methanol masers from the full BGPS catalog (~ 1000), and do so with a high detection efficiency (~75%).