Investigating the relation between FIR flux density and maser phenomena

Abstract

During the last years, we have searched for water emission toward a sample comprised of all galaxies visible by the 100-m Effelsberg telescope (Dec. > -30<SUP>°</SUP>), with known recessional velocities, and with 100 mu m IRAS point source fluxes > 50 Jy. We have obtained a maser detection rate of 22%, far above the corresponding rates reached in previous works on other selected samples. Furthermore, we have been able to show a relationship between FIR flux density and maser phenomena. <P />Here we discuss the outlined results of our past survey and describe an on-going project aimed to broaden the observational campaign toward galaxies with 100 mu m IRAS point source fluxes in the range 30-50 Jy, in order to confirm the correlation found and, hopefully, to discover additional maser sources for relevant follow-up interferometric studies.