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Oxford University Press, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2(328), p. L17-L20, 2001

DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-8711.2001.05101.x

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Gigamasers: the key to the dust-obscured star-formation history of the Universe?

Journal article published in 2001 by Richard H. D. Townsend, Rob J. Ivison, Ian Smail ORCID, Andrew W. Blain, David T. Frayer
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

We discuss the possibility of using OH and H2O gigamasers to trace the redshift distribution of luminous, dust-obscured, star-forming galaxies. It has long been thought that ultraluminous, interacting galaxies should host gigamasers due to their vast pumping infrared luminosity, the large column density of molecules available to populate the maser states and the turbulent motion of the gas in these dynamically complex systems which allows unsaturated maser emission. OH masers may thus be well-suited to the redshift-blind detection of ultraluminous and hyperluminous infrared galaxies (L_FIR > 10^12 L_sun) such as those uncovered by the SCUBA submillimetre camera. The bandwidth requirement is low,