Gas emission and dynamics in the infrared dark cloud G31.23+0.05

We performed a multiwavelength study towards the infrared dark cloud(IRDC) G31.23+0.05 with new CO observations from Purple Mountain Observatory and archival data(the GLIMPSE,MIPSGAL,HERSCHEL,ATLASGAL,BGPS and NVSS surveys).From these observations,we identified three IRDCs with systemic velocities of 108.36 ± 0.06(cloud A),104.22 ± 0.11(cloud B) and75.73 ± 0.07 km s~(-1)(cloud C) in the line of sight towards IRDC G31.23.Analyses of the molecular and dust emission suggest that cloud A is a filamentary structure containing a young stellar object;clouds B and C both include a starless core.Clouds A and B are gravitationally bound and have a chance to form stars.In addition,the velocity information and the position-velocity diagram suggest that clouds A and B are adjacent in space and provide a clue hinting at a possible cloud-cloud collision.Additionally,the distribution of dust temperature shows a temperature bubble.The compact core in cloud A is associated with an UCHII region,an IRAS source,H_2O masers,CH_3OH masers and OH masers,suggesting that massive star formation is active there.We estimate the age of the HII region to be(0.03–0.09) Myr,indicating that the star inside is young.     

Statistical Properties of 6.7 GHz Methanol Maser Sources

We present a statistical analysis of 482 6.7 GHz methanol maser sources from the available literature, on their maser emission and the characteristics of their associated infrared sources. On the color-color diagram, more than 70% of the objects fall within a very small region (0.57 ≤ [25 - 12] ≤ 1.30 and 1.30 ≤[60 - 12] ≤ 2.50). This suggests that 6.7 GHz methanol maser emission occurs only within a very short evolutionary phase during the earliest stage of star formation. The velocity ranges of the masers belong to two main groups: one from 1 to 10 km s^-1, and one from about 11 to 20 km s^-1. These velocity ranges indicate that the masers are probably associated with both disks and outflows. The correlations between the maser and infrared flux densities, and between the maser and infrared luminosities, suggest that far-infrared radiation is a possible pumping mechanism for the masers which most probably originate from some outer molecular envelopes or disks.     

Infrared Characteristics of Associated Sources of Water Masers

We present an analysis of the infrared properties of 1417 water masers collected from the literature published by December 2004. The associated infrared sources of the water masers were identified with IRAS and MSX (Midcourse Space Experiment) catalogues. There are 1252 water masers associated with IRAS sources within 1', which include 700 interstellar and 552 stellar sources. For 382 sources, the IRAS counterpart identification and the maser classification are new. We found the colors of the interstellar maser sources are much redder than those of the stellar ones at IRAS wavelength bands; 99% of the interstellar maser sources are above black body line, while 95% of the stellar masers are below. The distribution difference of the two kinds of masers shown in the color-color diagram is due to their different optical depths and temperature distributions of dust regions. There are 743 water masers with MSX counterparts, of which 552 are interstellar masers and 191 are stellar masers. MSX colors of the associated sources of water masers are here analyzed for the first time. The color differences among the MSX bands are small and the interstellar masers are redder than the stellar masers. There is a correlation between the intensity of the stellar water maser emission and that of the 12μm and 25μm emissions, while there is no correlation between the water maser emission and the 8 μm emission. The infrared intensity increases with increasing wavelength for the interstellar masers, while it is the opposite for stellar masers. These results may provide clues for the pumping of water maser and for the properties of the two kinds of maser emission regions.     

An Infrared Photometric Study of Galaxies with Extragalactic H2O Maser Sources

All galaxies with extragalactic H_2O maser sources observed so far are collected. With the 2MASS and the IRAS photometric data an infrared study is performed on those galaxies.By a comparison between the H_2O maser detected sources and non-detected sources in the infrared it is indicated that infrared properties in the IRAS 12-25μm and 60-100μm are important for producing H_2O masers in galaxies.It is also found that the H_2O maser galaxies with different nuclear activity types have rather different infrared properties mainly in the IRAS 12-60μm region.     

Generation of Interstellar Class Ⅱ 72-81A and 72-81A-Methanol Masers

New methanol maser lines at 72 → 63A-(86.6GHz) and 72 → 63A (86.9GHz) together with two candidate methanol maser lines at 72 → 81A-(80.99GHz) and 72 → 81A (111.29GHz) have been detected in W3(OH). We use a pumping mechanism,i.e.,methanol masers without population inversion,to explain the formation of weak methanol masers of 72 → 81A and 72 → 81A-. We explain well why the line-shape of the transition 72 → 81A is not typical. A similar argument can be applied to the Λ-type level system 72A-,63A-and 81A-,as well as to the 72 → 81A-80.99GHz masers.     

Generation of Interstellar Class II 72-81A^＋ and 72-81A^- Methanol Masers

New methanol maser lines at 72 → 63A^-（86.6 GHz） and 72 → 63A^＋（86.9 GHz） together with two candidate methanol maser lines at 72 → 81A-（80.99GHz） and 72→81A^＋（111.29GHz） have been detected in W3（OH）. We use a pumping mechanism, i.e., methanol masers without population inversion, to explain the formation of weak methanol masers of 72 → 81A^＋ and 72→ 81A^-. We explain well why the line-shape of the transition 72 → 81A^＋ is not typical. A similar argument can be applied to the A-type level system 72A^-, 63A^- and 81A^-, as well as to the 72 → 81A^- 80.99 GHz masers.     

Multifrequency Polarization Variations in the Quasar 0917＋624

We present a detailed analysis of multi-frequency observations of linear polarization in the intraday variable quasar 0917+624 (z = 1.44). The observations were made in May 1989 at five frequencies (1.4, 2.7, 5.0, 8.3 and 15GHz) with the VLA and the Effelsberg 100 m-telescope and in December 1988 at two frequencies (2.7 and 5.0 GHz) with the latter. It is shown that the relationship between the variations of the polarized and total flux density is highly wavelength dependent, and the multi-frequency polarization behavior may be essential for investigating the mechanisms causing these variations. It is shown that the variations observed at 20 cm can be interpreted in terms of refractive interstellar scintillation. However, after subtracting the variation due to scintillation, three 'features' emerged in the light-curve of the polarized flux density, indicating an additional variable component. Interestingly, these features are shown to be correlated with the variations at 2-6 cm, thus indicating that thes     

The Gyrosynchrotron Radiation Spectrum in a Nonuniform Source

Effects of the energy spectral index δ, low energy cutoff E0 and number density N of energetic electrons on gyrosynchrotron spectrum are investigated for a model source with a nonuniform magnetic field. It is found that the flux density Sv of the x-mode and o-mode systematically increase with increasing E0, N and with decreasing δ. The peak frequency of the spectrum, vp, also systematically increases as increasing E0 and N, but it may not depend on δ. The gyrosynchrotron radiation in the nonuniform case is polarized predominately in the x-mode at v ≥ 3 GHz. A sense reversal of circular polarization also occurs but at much lower frequencies (v ≤ 3 GHz). The reversal frequency also increases with increasing E0 and N, but it perhaps is independent of δ.     

A Survey and Statistics of Interstellar OH and H_2O Masers

We present a statistical analysis of a sky survey of interstellar H2O and OH masers. These masers can be classified into three categories: isolated H2O masers, isolated OH masers, and simple OH/H2O maser associations. The total number of sources in each category is of the same order of magnitude, and as an evolutionary phase they can maintain -105 yr. An improved radiative pumping mechanism is proposed. This model avoids some of the deficiencies of previous radiative models, such as shortage of exciting photons. The statistical results obtained from the survey can be interpreted by the new mechanism together with the evolutionary model in which the gravitational force of the central stellar objects is responsible for the HII region.     

Measuring the Distance of VX Sagittarii with SiO Maser Proper Motions

We report on 43GHz v=1, J=1-0 SiO maser proper motions in the circumstellar envelope of the M-type semi-regular variable star VX Sgr, observed by Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) at 3 epochs during 1999 April-May. Applying the statistical parallax analysis to these proper motions, we estimated a distance of VX Sgr of 1.57±0.27kpc, which is consistent with that based on the proper motions of H2O masers, or on the assumption that VX Sgr belongs to the Sgr OB1 association. At this distance, VX Sgr can be classified as a red supergiant. Comparing the statistical parallax method with those of model fitting and annual parallax, we think that the statistical parallax method may be a good way of estimating SiO maser distances at present.     

ASAS J174406+2446.8 is identified as a marginal-contact binary with a possible cool third body

ASAS J174406+2446.8 was originally found as a δ Scuti-type pulsating star with the period P=0.189068 d by ASAS survey.However,the LAMOST stellar parameters reveal that it is far beyond the red edge of pulsational instability strip on the log g-T diagram of δ Scuti pulsating stars.To understand the physical properties of the variable star,we observed it by the 1.0-m Cassegrain reflecting telescope at Yunnan Observatories.Multi-color light curves in B,V,R_c and I_c bands were obtained and are analyzed by using the W-D program.It is found that this variable star is a shallow-contact binary with an EB-type light curve and an orbital period of 0.3781 d rather than a δ Scuti star.It is a W-subtype contact binary with a mass ratio of 1.135(±0.019) and a fill-out factor of 10.4%(±5.6)%.The situation of ASAS J174406+2446.8 resembles those of other EB-type marginal-contact binaries such as UU Lyn,Ⅱ Per and GW Tau.All of them are at a key evolutionary phase from a semi-detached configuration to a contact system predicted by the thermal relaxation oscillation theory.The linear ephemeris was corrected by using 303 new determined times of light minimum.It is detected that the O-C curve shows a sinusoidal variation that could be explained by the light-travel-time effect via the presence of a cool red dwarf.The present investigation reveals that some of the δ Scuti-type stars beyond the red edge of pulsating instability strip on the log g-T diagram are misclassified eclipsing binaries.To understand their structures and evolutionary states,more studies are required in the future.     

First MERLIN Observations of Line Emission from the OH Megamaser toward IRAS 10173＋0828

Many galaxies are thought to contain massive black holes, with masses in excess of ten million solar masses, at their centres and warped circumnu-clear toruses. The best evidence comes from observing gas or masers rotating rapidly within a circumnuclear torus surrounding a central body. Here we report on the first MERLIN observations of line emission from the OH megamaser toward IRAS 10173+0828. The position of peak flux contours of the OH megamaser is consistent with that of the continuum in IRAS 10173+0828. This means that the OH megamaser is a diffuse unsaturated maser which could amplify the diffuse 18 cm continuum emission with an amplification factor of order unity.     

The pc-scale radio structure of MIR-observed radio galaxies

We investigated the relationship between the accretion process and jet properties by utilizing very long baseline array(VLBA) and mid-infrared(MIR) data for a sample of 45 3 CRR radio galaxies selected with a flux density at 178 MHz 16.4 Jy, 5 GHz very large array(VLA) core flux density≥7 m Jy and MIR observations. The pc-scale radio structure at 5 GHz is presented by using our VLBA observations for 21 sources acquired in February, 2016, the analysis of archival data for 16 objects and directly obtaining measurements for eight radio galaxies available from literatures. The accretion mode is constrained from the Eddington ratio with a dividing value of 0.01, which is estimated from the MIR-based bolometric luminosity and the black hole masses. While most Fanaroff-Riley type II radio galaxies(FRIIs) have higher Eddington ratio than Fanaroff-Riley type I radio galaxies(FRIs), we found that there is indeed no single correspondence between the FR morphology and accretion mode with eight FRIIs at low accretion rate and two FRIs at high accretion rate. There is a significant correlation between the VLBA core luminosity at 5 GHz and the Eddington ratio. Various morphologies are identified in our sample, including core only, single-sided core-jet and two-sided core-jet structures. We found that the higher accretion rate may be more likely related with the core-jet structure, thus generating a more extended jet. These results imply that the higher accretion rates are likely able to produce more powerful jets. There is a strong correlation between the MIR luminosity at 15 μm and VLBA 5 GHz core luminosity, in favor of the tight relation between the accretion disk and jets. In our sample, the core brightness temperature ranges from 10~9 to 10~(13.38) K with a median value of 10~(11.09) K, indicating that systematically the beaming effect may not be significant. The exceptional cases, FRIs at high accretion rates and FRIIs at low accretion rates, are exclusively at the high and low ends, respectively, of the distribution of the flux ratio for VLBA core to 178 MHz flux density. It is not impossible that the locations of these sources are due to the recent shining or weakening of their central engines(i.e., both accretion and jet).     

A Possible Origin of 6.7 GHz Linear Methanol Maser Sources

LETTERS1 INTRODUCTIONNew1y formed massive stars are obscured by dust, and their clearest signature is oftenat radio frequencies from strong maser emission. Methanol maser emission arises from severaItransitions, the strongest being the 5o -- 61A line at 6.7 GHz, which is also the second strongestGalactic masers of any molecule, first reported by Meaten (1991) and recognized as typical ofClass II masers. CIass II methanol masers are always found in regions of receat massive starfOr…     

The Two Mini-lobes of the CSO OQ208—— VLBI Observations at 5 GHz and 8.4 GHz

We present the results of VLBI observations at 5 GHz and 8.4 GHz of the compact symmetric object (CSO) OQ208. Images taken on four epochs at 5GHz and one at 8.4GHz show that the parsec radio structure of the source consists of two mini-lobes, both of them are resolved into two hot-spots. We note that the component D is stronger than the component C in the south-west region at 5 GHz, indicating that component D is less free-free absorbed than C at low frequency. On the basis of the separation of components A and D, a proper motion of 0.032±0.02 mas yr~(-1) between the two mini-lobes is estimated. This value is about half the previous estimates based on the separation of components A and C with 8.4 GHz VLBI data. The reason for the decrease in the expansion velocity is discussed.     

A Probable Short Decimetric Type I-like Noise Storm：Associated with Type III Bursts？

A rare Type I-like noise storm was observed with the solar radio spectrometers (1.0-2.0 GHz and 2.60-3.8 GHz) at National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC) on September 23, 1998. We concentrate on checking the Type I-like noise storm occurred in the decay phase of a Type IV radio burst. This noise storm consists of many Type I bursts and isolated Type Ⅲ or Type Ⅲ pair bursts. It has a bandwidth of ≤ 0.5 GHz. The duration of each Type Ⅰ burst is of the order of 100-300ms. The total duration is greater than 11 minutes. The circular polarization degree of the components of Type Ⅰ and associated Type Ⅲ bursts are about 40%-100% and almost 100%, respectively, which is greater than that of the background continuum (nearly the precision of our instrument). This short decimetric Type I-like storm may be another kind or the extension of the kind of metric Type Ⅰ storm, and may possess the duality of metric and decimetric radio emission. It may be in favor of an earlier emission mechanism of the fundamental plasma radiation due to the coalescence of Langmuir waves with low-frequency waves.     

Antenna system characteristics and solar radio burst observations

The Chinese Spectral Radio Heliograph(CSRH) is an advanced aperture synthesis solar radio heliograph, independently developed by National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences. It consists of 100 reflector antennas,which are grouped into two antenna arrays(CSRH-I and CSRH-II) for low and high frequency bands respectively. The frequency band of CSRH-I is 0.4–2 GHz and that for CSRH-II is 2–15 GHz. In the antenna and feed system, CSRH uses eleven feeds to receive signals coming from the Sun. The radiation pattern has a lower side lobe and the back lobe of the feed is well illuminated. The characteristics of gain G and antenna noise temperature T affect the quality of solar radio imaging. For CSRH, the measured G is larger than 60 d Bi and T is less than 120 K. After CSRH-I was established, we successfully captured a solar radio burst between 1.2–1.6 GHz on 2010 November12 using this instrument and this event was confirmed through observations with the Solar Broadband Radio Spectrometer at 2.84 GHz and the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite. In addition, an image obtained from CSRH-I clearly revealed the profile of the solar radio burst. The other observational work involved the imaging the Fengyun-2E geosynchronous satellite which is assumed to be a point source.Results indicate that the data processing method applied in this study for deleting errors in a noisy image could be used for processing images from other sources.     

Linear Correlations between Peak Frequency of Gyrosynchrotron Spectrum and Photosphere Magnetic Fields

The gyrosynchrotron spectra are computed in a nonuniform magnetic field case, taking into account the self-and gyroresonanceabsorption. It is found that the peak frequency νp of the gyrosynchrotron spectrum systematically increases with the increasing photosphere magnetic field strength B0 and increasing viewing angle θ. It is also found for the first time that there are good positive linear correlations between νp and B0, and between log νp and log θ, with linear correlation coefficient 0.99 between νp and B0 and 0.95 between log νp and log θ. We apply the correlations to analyze two burst events observed with OVSA and find that the evolution tendencies of the photosphere magnetic field strength B0 estimated from the above expression are comparable with the observational results of SOHO/MDI. We also give a comparison of the diagnostic results of coronal magnetic field strength in both uniform and nonuniform source models.     

Elliptical distortion of the Milky Way's rotation traced by high-mass star-forming regions

The gravitational potential of the Milky Way is non-axisymmetric, caused by a bar or triaxial halo, which dominates elliptical rotation of the Milky Way. Employing a likelihood analysis, we exploit the astrometric data of masers thoroughly and constrain the elliptical rotation of the Galaxy. Masers in high-mass star-forming regions, observed by VLBA, are more distant tracers than stars observed in the optical bandpass,and thus are more appropriate for studying the global feature of the Milky Way's rotation. A clear elliptical potential of the Milky Way is detected, with an ellipticity of €_0~0.09 at the Sun, and the ellipticity increases towards the outer disk. The minor axis of the elliptical potential(the major axis of the rotation orbit) is found to be near the Sun with a displacement of ~32°. Based on the rotation model assumed for an elliptical potential, we also make a kinematical calibration of the Galactocentric distance of the Sun, which gives R_0= 7.63 ± 0.34 kpc.     

Is the enhancement of type Ⅱ radio bursts during CME interactions related to the associated solar energetic particle event?

We investigated 64 pairs of interacting-CME events identified from simultaneous observations by the SOHO and STEREO spacecraft from January 2010 to August 2014, to examine the relationship between large SEP events in the energy range of ～25 to～60 MeV and properties of the interacting CMEs.We found that during CME interactions, the large SEP events in this study were all generated by CMEs with the presence of enhanced type Ⅱ radio bursts, which also have wider longitudinal distributions compared to events without a type Ⅱ radio burst or its enhancement(almost always associated with small SEP events).It seems that the signature of type Ⅱ radio burst enhancement is a good discriminator between large SEP and small or no SEP event producers during CME interactions. The type Ⅱ radio burst enhancement is more likely to be generated by CME interactions, with the main CME having a larger speed(v), angular width(WD), mass(m) and kinetic energy(Ek), and taking over the preceding CMEs. The preceding CMEs in these instances have higher v, WD, m and Ekthan those in CME pairs missing type Ⅱ radio bursts or enhancements. Generally, the values of these properties in the type-Ⅱ-enhanced events are typically higher than the corresponding non-type-Ⅱ or non-type-Ⅱ-enhanced cases for both the main and preceding CMEs. Our analysis also revealed that the intensities of associated SEP events correlate negatively with the intersection height of the two CMEs. Moreover, the overlap width of two CMEs is typically larger in type-Ⅱ-enhanced events than in non-type-Ⅱ or non-type-Ⅱ-enhanced events. Most type-Ⅱ-enhanced events and SEP events are coincident and are almost always made by the fast and wide main CMEs that sweep fully over relatively slower and narrower preceding CMEs. We suggest that a fast CME with enough energy completely overtaking a relatively narrower preceding CME, especially at low height, can drive a more energetic shock signified by the enhanced type Ⅱ radio bursts. The shock may accelerate ambient particles(likely provided by the preceding CME) and lead to large SEP events more easily.