A new radio recombination line maser object toward the MonR2 HII region

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a weakly amplified radio recombination line maser in the MonR2 HII region, revealing a dense jet and ionized wind structure through high-resolution submillimeter observations.

Contribution

It presents the first detection and modeling of a weakly amplified RRL maser in MonR2-IRS2, expanding understanding of maser phenomena in young massive star environments.

Findings

Detected double-peaked RRL profiles indicating maser amplification.

RRL emission originates from a dense, collimated jet and ionized wind.

MonR2-IRS2 is a very compact, optically thin free-free emission source.

Abstract

We report the detection of a new radio recombination line (RRL) maser object toward the IRS2 source in the MonR2 ultracompact HII region. The continuum emission at 1.3mm and 0.85mm and the H30a and H26a lines were observed with the Submillimeter Array (SMA) at angular resolutions of about 0.5"-3". The SMA observations show that the MonR2-IRS2 source is very compact and remains unresolved at spatial scales <=400AU. Its continuum power spectrum at millimeter wavelengths is almost flat (alpha=-0.16, with S_nu proportional to nu^alpha), indicating that this source is dominated by optically thin free-free emission. The H30a and H26a RRL emission is also compact and peaks toward the position of the MonR2-IRS2 source. The measured RRL profiles are double-peaked with the H26a line showing a clear asymmetry in its spectrum. Since the derived line-to-continuum flux ratios (80 and 180kms-1 for H30a and H26a, respectively) exceed the LTE predictions, the RRLs toward MonR2-IRS2 are affected by maser amplification. The amplification factors are however smaller than those found toward the emission line star MWC349A, indicating that MonR2-IRS2 is a weakly amplified maser. Radiative transfer modelling of the RRL emission toward this source shows that the RRL masers arise from a dense and collimated jet embedded in a cylindrical ionized wind, oriented nearly along the direction of the line-of-sight. High-angular resolution observations at sub-millimeter wavelengths are needed to unveil weakly amplified RRL masers in very young massive stars.