Polarisation observations of VY Canis Majoris H_2O 5_(32)–4_(41) 620.701 GHz maser emission with HIFI
- Creators
- Harwit, M.
- Boogert, A. C. A.
Abstract
Context. Water vapour maser emission from evolved oxygen-rich stars remains poorly understood. Additional observations, including polarisation studies and simultaneous observation of different maser transitions may ultimately lead to greater insight. Aims. We have aimed to elucidate the nature and structure of the VY CMa water vapour masers in part by observationally testing a theoretical prediction of the relative strengths of the 620.701 GHz and the 22.235 GHz maser components of ortho H_2O. Methods. In its high-resolution mode (HRS) the Herschel Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared (HIFI) offers a frequency resolution of 0.125 MHz, corresponding to a line-of-sight velocity of 0.06 km s^(-1), which we employed to obtain the strength and linear polarisation of maser spikes in the spectrum of VY CMa at 620.701 GHz. Simultaneous ground based observations of the 22.235 GHz maser with the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie 100-m telescope at Effelsberg, provided a ratio of 620.701 GHz to 22.235 GHz emission. Results. We report the first astronomical detection to date of H_2O maser emission at 620.701 GHz. In VY CMa both the 620.701 and the 22.235 GHz polarisation are weak. At 620.701 GHz the maser peaks are superposed on what appears to be a broad emission component, jointly ejected from the star. We observed the 620.701 GHz emission at two epochs 21 days apart, both to measure the potential direction of linearly polarised maser components and to obtain a measure of the longevity of these components. Although we do not detect significant polarisation levels in the core of the line, they rise up to approximately 6% in its wings.
Additional Information
© 2010 ESO. Received 26 May 2010; Accepted 3 September 2010; Published online 01 October 2010. Herschel is an ESA space observatory with science instruments provided by European-led Principal Investigator consortia and with important participation from NASA. HIFI has been designed and built by a consortium of institutes and university departments from across Europe, Canada and the United States under the leadership of SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Groningen, The Netherlands and with major contributions from Germany, France and the US. Consortium members are: Canada: CSA, U. Waterloo; France: CESR, LAB, LERMA, IRAM; Germany: KOSMA, MPIfR, MPS; Ireland, NUI Maynooth; Italy: ASI, IFSI-INAF, Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri- INAF; Netherlands: SRON, TUD; Poland: CAMK, CBK; Spain: Observatorio Astronmico Nacional (IGN), Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC-INTA). Sweden: Chalmers University of Technology – MC2, RSS & GARD; Onsala Space Observatory; Swedish National Space Board, Stockholm University – Stockholm Observatory; Switzerland: ETH Zurich, FHNW; USA: Caltech, JPL, NHSC. Support for this work was provided by NASA through an award issued by JPL/Caltech. We thank the HIFISTARS consortium for permission to use their VY CMa 556.9 GHz data for calibration purposes. We would like to acknowledge that Tom Phillips first pointed out to us that HIFI might yield useful polarisation observations. And, finally, we extend thanks to the anonymous referee for perceptive insights and suggestions that greatly improved this paper.Attached Files
Published - Harwit2010p12184Astron_Astrophys.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 21667
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20110110-112522232
- NASA
- Created
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2011-01-11Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field