Initial results from the arecibo galactic plane methanol maser survey

Abstract

We present initial results of a blind survey for 6.7 GHz methanol masers that is being carried out using the 305 meter Arecibo radio telescope. Theoretical and observational studies have revealed that 6.7 GHz methanol masers are excellent tracers of high-mass star formation and are precursors of ultracompact HII regions. The region surveyed is the Galactic disk at latitudes |b| < 0.4 degrees. We have to date surveyed a 2.6 square degree region in which we have identified 16 new masers along with 4 previously detected sources. Each source has several individual velocity components enabling us to do statistics on line-widths of individual maser features. We discuss these results including identification of multi-wavelength counterparts for some of these masers, and report a tentative detection of variability of some masers on timescales of a day or two.The Arecibo Observatory is a part of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, which is operated by Cornell University under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.