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Y.M. Pihlström (Caltech), J.E. Conway (OSO), J. Darling (OCIW)
A fraction of the Ultra Luminous Infrared Galaxies harbor strong maser emission in the 1667 MHz and 1665 MHz OH lines. In this poster we will summarize the results from high resolution imaging of the OH maser emission in a few sources. The observations were performed using VLBI, and intended to study the physical structure of the OH megamaser emission. The prominent results are that the OH megamaser emission is located within the central 100 parsecs, and can frequently be explained by dense circumnuclear disks or rings of gas presumably accumulated during the merger event. For the broadest OH megamaser lines (exceeding 1000 km/s), a combination of orbital mechanics, disk rotation, molecular inflow and outflow, and the velocity separation of the two main lines at 1667 MHz and 1665 MHz is likely to make up the velocity range.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 5
© 2004. The American Astronomical Society.