Abstract
Water masers1,2,3,4 are found in dense molecular clouds closely associated with supermassive black holes at the centres of active galaxies. On the basis of the understanding of the local water-maser luminosity function5, it was expected that masers at intermediate and high redshifts would be extremely rare. However, galaxies at redshifts z > 2 might be quite different from those found locally, not least because of more frequent mergers and interaction events. Here we use gravitational lensing to search for masers at higher redshifts than would otherwise be possible, and find a water maser at redshift 2.64 in the dust- and gas-rich, gravitationally lensed type-1 quasar MG J0414+0534 (refs 6–13). The isotropic luminosity is 10,000 (, solar luminosity), which is twice that of the most powerful local water maser14 and half that of the most distant maser previously known15. Using the locally determined luminosity function5, the probability of finding a maser this luminous associated with any single active galaxy is 10-6. The fact that we see such a maser in the first galaxy we observe must mean that the volume densities and luminosities of masers are higher at redshift 2.64.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Greenhill, L. J. Extragalactic water masers, geometric estimation of H0, and characterization of dark energy. New Astron. Rev. 48, 1079–1084 (2004)
Morganti, R., Greenhill, L. J., Peck, A. B., Jones, D. L. & Henkel, C. Disks, tori, and cocoons: Emission and absorption diagnostics of AGN environments. New Astron. Rev. 48, 1195–1209 (2004)
Henkel, C. et al. H2O megamasers: Accretion disks, jet interaction, outflows or massive star formation? Astrophys. Space Sci. 295, 107–116 (2005)
Lo, K. Y. Mega-masers and galaxies. Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 43, 625–676 (2005)
Henkel, C. et al. New H2O masers in Seyfert and FIR bright galaxies. Astron. Astrophys. 436, 75–90 (2005)
Hewitt, J. N., Turner, E. L., Lawrence, C. R., Schneider, D. P. & Brody, J. P. A gravitational lens candidate with an unusually red optical counterpart. Astron. J. 104, 968–979 (1992)
Lawrence, C. R., Elston, R., Januzzi, B. T. & Turner, E. L. MG 0414+0534: A dusty gravitational lens. Astron. J. 110, 2570–2582 (1995)
Tonry, J. L. & Kochanek, C. S. Redshifts of the gravitational lenses MG 0414+0534 and MG 0751+2716. Astron. J. 117, 2034–2038 (1999)
Trotter, C. S., Winn, J. N. & Hewitt, J. N. A multipole-taylor expansion for the potential of the gravitational lens MG J0414+0534. Astrophys. J. 535, 671–691 (2000)
Elíasdóttir, Á., Hjorth, J., Toft, S., Burud, I. & Paraficz, D. Extinction curves of lensing galaxies out to z = 1. Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser. 166, 443–469 (2006)
Curran, S. J., Darling, J., Bolatto, A. D., Whiting, M. T., Bignell, C. & Webb, J. K. HI and OH absorption in the lensing galaxy of MG J0414+0534. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 382, L11–L15 (2007)
Barvainis, R., Alloin, D., Guilloteau, S. & Antonucci, R. Detection of CO (3–2) Emission at z = 2.64 from the gravitationally lensed quasar MG 0414+0534. Astrophys. J. 492, L13–L16 (1998)
Moore, C. B., Carilli, C. L. & Menten, K. M. Neutral hydrogen 21 cm absorption at redshift 2.6365 toward the gravitational lens MG J0414+0534. Astrophys. J. 510, L87–L90 (1999)
Koekemoer, A. M. et al. A water-vapour giga-maser in the active galaxy TXFS 2226–184. Nature 378, 697–699 (1995)
Barvainis, R. & Antonucci, R. Extremely luminous water vapor emission from a type 2 quasar at redshift z = 0.66. Astrophys. J. 628, L89–L91 (2005)
Wilner, D. J., Bourke, T. L., Ho, P. T. P., Kileen, N. E. B. & Calabretta, M. A search for water masers in the gravitationally lensed quasars H1413+117 and MG 0414+0534. Astron. J. 117, 1139–1142 (1999)
Riechers, D. A. et al. First detection of HCO+ emission at high redshift. Astrophys. J. 645, L13–L16 (2006)
Neufeld, D. A., Maloney, P. R. & Conger, S. Water maser emission from X-ray-heated circumnuclear gas in active galaxies. Astrophys. J. 436, L127–L130 (1994)
Miyoshi, M. et al. Evidence for a black hole from high rotation velocities in a sub-parsec region of NGC 4258. Nature 373, 127–129 (1995)
Tarchi, A., Henkel, C., Peck, A. B. & Menten, K. M. Water maser emission in IC 342. Astron. Astrophys. 385, 1049–1055 (2002)
Braatz, J. et al. in Astrophysical Masers and their Environments (IAU S242) (eds Chapman, J. M. & Baan, W. A.) 402–403 (Proc. Internat. Astron. Union Symp. Colloq., Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007)
Tarchi, A., Henkel, C., Chiaberge, M. & Menten, K. M. Discovery of a luminous water megamaser in the FR II radio galaxy 3C 403. Astron. Astrophys. 407, L33–L36 (2003)
Antonucci, R. Unified models for active galactic nuclei and quasars. Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 31, 473–521 (1993)
Kondratko, P. T., Greenhill, L. J. & Moran, J. M. The parsec-scale accretion disk in NGC 3393. Astrophys. J. 678, 87–95 (2008)
Herrnstein, J. R. et al. A geometric distance to the galaxy NGC 4258 from orbital motions in a nuclear gas disk. Nature 400, 539–541 (1999)
Claussen, M. J., Diamond, P. J., Braatz, J. A., Wilson, A. S. & Henkel, C. The water masers in the elliptical galaxy NGC 1052. Astrophys. J. 500, L129–L132 (1998)
Peck, A. B. et al. The flaring H2O megamaser and compact radio source in Markarian 348. Astrophys. J. 590, 149–161 (2003)
Gallimore, J. F., Baum, S. A., O’Dea, C. P., Brinks, E. & Pedlar, A. H2O and OH masers as probes of the obscuring torus in NGC 1068. Astrophys. J. 462, 740–745 (1996)
Ros, E. et al. VLBI imaging of the gravitational lens MG J0414+0534. Astron. Astrophys. 362, 845–850 (2000)
Greenhill, L. J. et al. A warped accretion disk and wide-angle outflow in the inner parsec of the Circinus galaxy. Astrophys. J. 590, 162–173 (2003)
Acknowledgements
Our results are based on observations made using the 100-m telescope of the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie at Effelsberg and the EVLA, which is operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. The authors are grateful to A. Kraus and M. Claussen, who helped make these observations. J.P.McK. was supported by the European Community’s Sixth Framework Marie Curie Research Training Network ‘ANGLES’. A.B. and O.W. were supported by the Priority and Emmy-Noether-Programmes of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, respectively.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
This file contains Supplementary Data, Supplementary Tables 1-2, and Supplementary References. (PDF 143 kb)
PowerPoint slides
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Impellizzeri, C., McKean, J., Castangia, P. et al. A gravitationally lensed water maser in the early Universe. Nature 456, 927–929 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07544
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07544
This article is cited by
-
The super-resolved megamasers of NGC 4258
Nature Astronomy (2022)
-
THEZA: TeraHertz Exploration and Zooming-in for Astrophysics
Experimental Astronomy (2021)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.