Related papers: Mrk 1419 - a new distance determination
Using the Green Bank Telescope, we conducted a ``snapshot'' survey for water maser emission toward the nuclei of 611 galaxies and detected eight new sources. The sample consisted of nearby (v < 5000 km/s) and luminous (M_B < -19.5)…
For the first time in an extragalactic source, we detect linearly polarized water maser emission associated with the molecular accretion disk of NGC 1068. The position angles of the electric polarization vectors are perpendicular to the…
We present a measurement of the Hubble constant made using geometric distance measurements to megamaser-hosting galaxies. We have applied an improved approach for fitting maser data and obtained better distance estimates for four galaxies…
We present observations of the H2O megamasers in the accretion disk of NGC 6323. By combining interferometric and spectral monitoring data, we estimate H$_{0} = 73^{+26}_{-22}$ km/s/Mpc, where the low strength of the systemic masers (<15…
We report on the results of a 14 year long VLBI study of proper motions in the IC133 H2O maser source in the galaxy M33. The method of Ordered Motion Parallax was used to model the 3-dimensional structure and dynamics of IC133 and obtain a…
Observations of H$_2$O masers from circumnuclear disks in active galaxies for the Megamaser Cosmology Project allow accurate measurement of the mass of supermassive black holes (BH) in these galaxies. We present the Very Long Baseline…
Multi-epoch VLBA observations of the maser in NGC 4258 have yielded a 4% geometrical distance to the galaxy. The potential scientific payoffs of finding similar objects at large distances, in the Hubble flow, are considerable. In this…
Megamaser disks provide the most precise and accurate extragalactic supermassive black hole masses. Here we describe a search for megamasers in nearby galaxies using the Green Bank Telescope (GBT). We focus on galaxies where we believe that…
We present a novel method for determining the total matter surface density of the Galactic disk by analysing the kinematics of a dynamically cold stellar stream that passes through or close to the Galactic plane. The method relies on the…
The 25 years following the serendipitous discovery of megamasers have seen tremendous progress in the study of luminous extragalactic H$_2$O emission. Single-dish monitoring and high resolution interferometry have been used to identify…
Extragalactic water maser emissions at 22 GHz have been playing vital roles in astrophysics. The limited detection rate of these masers has been motivating researchers to find clues that can help characterise them. The physical environments…
We present the results of very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations of water vapor masers in the nucleus of the LINER galaxy NGC 7738. The red- and blue-shifted and newly detected systemic maser features show an almost edge-on…
Masers found in massive star-forming regions can be located precisely in six-dimensional phase space and therefore serve as a tool for studying Milky Way dynamics. The non-random orbital phases at which the masers are found and the…
H2O maser disks with Keplerian rotation in active galactic nuclei offer a clean way to determine accurate black hole mass and the Hubble constant. An important assumption made in using a Keplerian H2O maser disk for measuring the black hole…
High precision mapping of H2O megamaser emission from active galaxies has revealed more than a dozen Keplerian H2O maser disks, which enable a ~4% uncertainty estimate of the Hubble constant as well as providing accurate masses for the…
Observations of the masers in the course of RadioAstron mission yielded detections of fringes for a number of sources in both water and hydroxyl maser transitions. Several sources display numerous ultra-compact details. This proves that…
We propose a method of distance determination based on the internal structure and dynamics of disk galaxies. The method relies on the universal luminosity profile of a stellar disk represented by an exponential law. Calibrating nearby…
We present a reanalysis of the water maser system in NGC 4258 to reassess its geometric distance, commonly reported as approximately 7.6 Mpc with percent-level accuracy, a key anchor in extragalactic distance ladder calibrations and recent…
Extragalactic water vapor masers with 50, 1000, 1, and 230 solar (isotropic) luminosities were detected toward Mrk1066 (UGC2456), Mrk34, NGC3556 and Arp299, respectively. The interacting system Arp299 appears to show two maser hotspots…
IRAS 20126+4104 is one of the best candidates for a high-mass (proto)star surrounded by an accretion disk. Such a fact may be used to set constraints on theories of high-mass star formation, but requires confirmation that the mass and…