Modeling and a spatial structure of interstellar masers

Maxim A. Voronkov
Astro Space Center of the Lebedev Physical Institute RAS, Moscow, Russia

This thesis presents a study of masers on the methanol, hydroxyl, and water vapor molecules seen in star-forming regions. A modeling of such masers is a complex numerical task where the radiation transfer equation is coupled with the system describing the balance of the level populations. The general method to solve such non-LTE multiline problem is a Monte Carlo method, the algorithm of which was described by Bernes (1979). The latter algorithm appears to account for the radiation field incorrectly. A modification of the Monte-Carlo method which is based on the averaging of formal solutions of the radiation transfer equation is proposed. This method was tested on two models of E-methanol masers in the limiting cases of the hot gas and the hot external radiation, which are probably corresponded to Class I and Class II methanol masers. Another model of the Class II methanol masers developed by Sobolev and Deguchi (1994) involve the pumping through two first torsionally excited states of the methanol molecule. Among other transitions the model predicts a weak maser at 44.9~GHz. The search for this transition towards brightest Class II methanol maser sources was undertaken to confirm the model. The line was detected in W3(OH) and probably NGC 6334F. The arguments in favor of weak masing in W3(OH) is given. The observational studies of interstellar masers are mainly devoted to the interferometric (VLBI) experiments. In this thesis the first space-VLBI observations of OH maser (1665/1667 MHz) were reported. The study with high angular resolution allows us to put a constraint on the interstellar scattering in the direction of the maser OH34.26+0.15. It appears to be about one order of magnitude lower than that obtained using the pulsar data. This fact gives rise to an idea that there is large scale variations in the spatial distribution of the scattering material. In this thesis the detailed study of the star-forming region GL2789 was performed. Using the Medicina 32-m radiotelescope the methanol maser at 6.7 GHz was discovered. High angular resolution observations were conducted using the EVN and VLBA arrays for the methanol (6.7 GHz) and the water vapor (22 GHz) masers in GL2789 respectively. It was revealed that maser spots corresponding to each spectral features form an ordered structure with a velocity gradient. Such a structure can delineate a circumstellar disk seen almost edge-on, where the masers on the water vapor molecule are observed in the central direction and the methanol masers seen in the tangential direction. The distance of such masers from the protostar was estimated to be about 40 a.u. for the water vapor masers and from 200 a.u. to 800 a.u. for the methanol one.


[Back to the Programme] [Seminar Home Page] [Department of Theoretical Astrophysics] [Ioffe Institute]

Page created on April 8, 2002.