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J. Darling, R. Giovanelli (Cornell University)
The upgraded Arecibo telescope offers unique capabilities for the detection of OH megamasers at cosmological distances in moderate integration times. A survey of modest scope has doubled the sample of known OH megamasers and has increased the sample at z=0.1-0.3 sevenfold. The Arecibo OH megamaser survey selects IRAS PSCz sources with z>0.1 and detects OH masing from roughly one in six of these luminous IR galaxies. The survey is scheduled to be completed by May 2001. The survey has made the first detections of variability in OH megamasers, and subsequent variability studies performed at Arecibo reveal complicated temporal behavior in both line and continuum emission which provides new insight into the masing conditions, scales, and mechanisms of OH megamasers. The success of the survey and the derived OH luminosity function indicate that deeper observations at Arecibo can potentially detect OH megamasers emitted from merging galaxies up to z=1-2. Arecibo also has interesting potential to detect methanol masers produced in the massive starbursts associated with OH megamasers.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: darling@astro.cornell.edu