Search for sub-millimeter H2O masers in active galaxies - the detection of a 321 GHz H2O maser in NGC4945

TL;DR

This paper reports the detection of a 321 GHz H2O maser in NGC 4945, demonstrating that submillimeter water masers can probe the circumnuclear regions of active galaxies with high resolution.

Contribution

The study presents the first detection of a 321 GHz H2O maser in NGC 4945, expanding the use of submillimeter masers to investigate active galactic nuclei environments.

Findings

Detected 321 GHz H2O maser in NGC 4945

Masers may originate in an edge-on rotating disk

High-velocity feature suggests proximity to central black hole

Abstract

We present further results of a search for extragalactic submillimeter H2O masers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA). The detection of a 321 GHz H2O maser in the nearby Type 2 Seyfert galaxy, the Circinus galaxy, has previously been reported, and here the spectral analysis of four other galaxies is described. We have discovered H2O maser emission at 321 GHz toward the center of NGC 4945, a nearby Type 2 Seyfert. The maser emission shows Doppler-shifted velocity features with velocity ranges similar to those of the previously reported 22 GHz H2O masers, however the non-contemporaneous observations also show differences in velocity offsets. The sub-parsec-scale distribution of the 22 GHz H2O masers revealed by earlier VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry) observations suggests that the submillimeter masers could arise in an edge-on rotating disk. The maser features remain unresolved by the synthesized beam of ~ 0.54 (~30 pc) and are located toward the 321 GHz continuum peak within errors. A marginally detected (3 sigma) high-velocity feature is redshifted by 579 km/s with respect to the systemic velocity of the galaxy. Assuming that this feature is real and arises from a Keplerian rotating disk in this galaxy, it is located at a radius of ~0.020 pc (~1.5 x 10^5 Schwarzschild radii), which would enable molecular material closer to the central engine to be probed than the 22 GHz H2O masers. This detection confirms that submillimeter H2O masers are a potential tracer of the circumnuclear regions of active galaxies, which will benefit from higher angular resolution studies with ALMA.