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M.C. Austin (Catholic Univ. of America, Maria Mitchell Obs.), M.A. Voronkov (Astro-Sp. Center, Russia), A.M. Sobolev (Ural St. U., Russia)
Using the Haystack Observatory 37-m radio telescope we have undertaken a search for maser emission in the 20-31 rotational transition of methanol in the first torsionally excited state (/vt = 1) near 45~GHz. We examined seven galactic sources --- six strong emitters of Class II methanol maser lines and Orion KL, the only source where this line had been detected. We confirm (at a level of 2/sigma) the previous detection and report two new detections --- a reliable (4/sigma) detection in W3(OH) and a marginal (2/sigma) detection in NGC 6334I. Upper limits for other sources will be presented. Although we did not see obvious signatures of maser amplification in this line in any source, arguments in favor of weak masing in W3(OH) will be presented and the significance of this discussed. This project was partially supported by the NSF/REU grant AST-9820555.