Nuclear Water Maser Emission in Centaurus A
Juergen Ott, David S. Meier, Mark McCoy, Alison Peck, Violette, Impellizzeri, Andreas Brunthaler, Fabian Walter, Philip Edwards, Crystal N., Anderson, Christian Henkel, Ilana Feain, Minnie Mao

TL;DR
This paper reports the detection of a water maser in Centaurus A, likely originating from the jet near the supermassive black hole, providing insights into jet composition and surrounding gas interactions.
Contribution
First detection of a water maser in Centaurus A, with evidence suggesting it is a jet maser from shocked gas near the black hole.
Findings
Maser located within <3pc of the black hole
Maser classified as a kilomaser with variable luminosity
Inferred jet density >10cm^-3 indicating substantial gas entrainment
Abstract
We report the detection of a 22GHz water maser line in the nearest (D~3.8Mpc) radio galaxy Centaurus A using the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). The line is centered at a velocity of ~960kms-1, which is redshifted by about 400kms-1 from the systemic velocity. Such an offset, as well as the width of ~120kms-1, could be consistent with either a nuclear maser arising from an accretion disk of the central supermassive black hole, or for a jet maser that is emitted from the material that is shocked near the base of the jet in Centaurus\,A. The best spatial resolution of our ATCA data constrains the origin of the maser feature within <3pc from the supermassive black hole. The maser exhibits a luminosity of ~1Lo, which classifies it as a kilomaser, and appears to be variable on timescales of months. A kilomaser can also be emitted by shocked gas in star forming regions. Given the…
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