Discovery of water vapor megamaser emission from Mrk1419 (NGC 2690) An analogue of NGC 4258.pdf

a r X i v : a s t r o - p h / 0 2 1 1 2 2 6 v 1 1 1 N o v 2 0 0 2 Astronomy Astrophysics manuscript no. (will be inserted by hand later) Discovery of water vapor megamaser emission from Mrk 1419 (NGC 2960): An analogue of NGC 4258? C. Henkel1, J. A. Braatz2, L. J. Greenhill3, and A. S. Wilson4 1 Max-Planck-Institut fu?r Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hu?gel 69, D-53121 Bonn, Germany 2 National Radio Astronomy Observatory, PO Box 2, Green Bank, WV 24944, USA 3 Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden St., Cambridge MA 02138, USA 4 Department of Astronomy, Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA Received date / Accepted date Abstract.Water vapor emission at 22GHz is reported from the nucleus of the LINER galaxy Mrk 1419 (NGC 2960). Single-dish spectra of the maser source show properties that are similar to those seen in NGC4258, namely (1) a cluster of systemic (V～Vsys) H2O features, (2) two additional H2O clusters, one red- and one blue-shifted with respect to Vsys, (3) a likely acceleration of the systemic features (dV /dt = 2.8±0.5 km s ?1 yr?1), and (4) no detectable velocity drifts (1 kms?1 yr?1) in the red- and blue-shifted features. Interpreting the data in terms of the paradigm established for NGC 4258, i.e. assuming the presence of an edge-on Keplerian circumnuclear annulus with the systemic emission arising from the near side of its inner edge, the following parameters are derived: Vrot = 330–600 kms?1, R～0.13–0.43 pc, binding mass M～107 M⊙, and mass density inside the disk ρ～10 9 M⊙ pc ?3. With the galaxy being approximately ten times farther away than NGC4258, a comparison of linear and angular scales (the latter via Very Long Baseline Interferometry) may provide an accurate geometric distance to Mrk 1419 that could be used to calibrate the cosmic distance scale. Key words. Galaxies: active – Galaxies: individual: Mrk 1419 (NGC 2960, UGC 05159) – Galaxies: ISM – Galaxies: nuclei – masers – Radio lines: galaxies 1. Introduction Water va