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13CH3OH masers associated with a transient phenomenon in a high-mass young stellar object

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-20, 16:27 authored by Chen, X, Sobolev, AM, Breen, SL, Shen, ZQ, Simon EllingsenSimon Ellingsen, MacLeod, GC, Li, B, Voronkov, MA, Kaczmarek, JF, Zhang, J, Ren, Z-Y, Wang, J, Linz, H, Hunter, TR, Brogan, C, Sugiyama, K, Burns, RA, Menten, K, Sanna, A, Stecklum, B, Hirota, T, Kim, KT, Chibueze, J, Heever, SVD
We report the first detection of isotopic methanol (13CH3OH) maser emission in interstellar space. The emission was detected toward the high-mass young stellar object G358.93-0.03 during monitoring of a flare in the 6.7 GHz methanol (CH3OH) maser emission in this source. We find that the spectral and spatial distribution of the 13CH3OH masers differs from the CH3OH masers imaged at the same epoch, contrary to expectations from similarity of their pumping. This conclusively demonstrates that isotopic methanol masers are bright under different physical conditions and suggests that they can provide additional, complementary information to the CH3OH masers from the same source. We detect a rapid decay of the 13CH3OH maser lines suggesting that they are transient phenomena (masing for only a few months), likely associated with rapid changes in radiation field due to an accretion burst induced by massive disk fragmentation. Changes in the line flux density are faster than required to achieve equilibrium in the energy level populations, indicating that the pumping of these masers is likely variable.

Funding

Australian Research Council

History

Publication title

Astrophysical Journal Letters

Volume

890

Article number

L22

Number

L22

Pagination

1-8

ISSN

2041-8205

Department/School

School of Natural Sciences

Publisher

Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd.

Place of publication

United Kingdom

Rights statement

Copyright 2020 The American Astronomical Society

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Expanding knowledge in the physical sciences

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