arXiv subjects

J. H. He

Publications and source records attributed to J. H. He.

22 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2005

The OH 1612 MHz maser pump rates of stellar, interstellar and post-AGB OH masers

(Pseudo) radiative pumprate of OH 1612 MHz masers is defined for a sample of 44 OH/IR sources (infrared sources with OH 1612 MHz maser), irrespective of the real maser pumping mechanisms. The correlation between the (pseudo) maser pumprates and the evolutionary status of the maser sources reveals that the radiative pumprates of stellar OH masers are nearly fixed, which agrees with the theoretical prediction for radiatively pumped OH maser. The (pseudo) radiative pumprates of interstellar OH masers are not only very small but also varying broadly over two orders of magnitude, which is argued to be the manifestation of varying number of quiet absorbing OH cloudlets and/or various OH maser pumping mechanisms and/or competitive gain between mainline and 1612 MHz OH masers and/or anisotropy of the maser emission. The radiative pumprates of post-AGB OH masers very possibly decrease with increasing IRAS C32 color indices and distribute in an interim region between the stellar and interstellar OH masers in the pumprate-color diagram.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2004

Search for radiative pumping lines of OH masers: I. The 34.6um absorption line towards 1612 MHz OH maser sources

The 1612 MHz hydroxyl maser in circumstellar envelopes has long been thought to be pumped by 34.6um photons. Only recently, the Infrared Space Observatory has made possible spectroscopic observations which enable the direct confirmation of this pumping mechanism in a few cases. To look for the presence of this pumping line, we have searched the Infrared Space Observatory Data Archive and found 178 spectra with data around 34.6um for 87 galactic 1612MHz masers. The analysis performed showed that the noise level and the spectral resolution of the spectra are the most important factors affecting the detection of the 34.6um absorption line. Only 5 objects from the sample (3 red supergiants and 2 galactic center sources) are found to show clear 34.6um absorption (all of them already known) while two additional objects only tentatively show this line. The 3 supergiants show similar pump rates and their masers might be purely radiatively pumped. The pump rates of OH masers in late type stars are found to be about 0.05, only 1/5 of the theoretical value of 0.25 derived by Elitzur (1992). We have also found 16 maser sources which, according to the analysis assuming Elitzur's pump rate, should show the 34.6 $μ$m absorption line but do not. These non-detections can be tentatively explained by far-infrared photon pumping, clumpy nature of the OH masing region or a limb-filling emission effect in the OH shell.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2004

Searching for radiative pumping lines of OH masers: II. The 53.3um absorption line towards 1612MHz OH maser sources

This paper analyzes the 53.3um line in the ISO LWS spectra towards a similar sample of OH/IR sources. We find 137 LWS spectra covering 53.3um and associated with 47 galactic OH/IR sources. Ten of these galactic OH/IR sources are found to show and another 5 ones tentatively show the 53.3um absorption while another 7 sources highly probably do not show this line. The source class is found to be correlated with the type of spectral profile: red supergiants (RSGs) and AGB stars tend to show strong blue-shifted filling emission in their 53.3um absorption line profiles while HII regions tend to show a weak red-shifted filling emission in the line profile. GC sources and megamasers do not show filling emission feature. It is argued that the filling emission might be the manifestation of an unresolved half emission half absorption profile of the 53.3um doublet. The 53.3 to 34.6um equivalent width (EW) ratio is close to unity for RSGs but much larger than unity for GC sources and megamasers while H II regions only show the 53.3um line. The pump rate defined as maser to IR photon flux ratio is approximately 5% for RSGs. The pump rates of GC sources are three order of magnitude smaller. Both the large 53.3 to 34.6um EW ratio and the small pump rate of the GC OH masers reflect that the two detected `pumping lines' in these sources are actually of interstellar origin. The pump rate of Arp 220 is 32%--much larger than that of RSGs, which indicates that the contribution of other pumping mechanisms to this megamaser is important.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2002

Radiative pumping of 1612 MHz OH masers: OH/IR sources with IRAS LRS spectra and 34.6 micrometer absorption feature

The population inversion which leads to the 1612 MHz OH maser emission has long been thought to be radiatively pumped. Since OH rotational lines involved in this pumping scheme lie in the far-infrared they became observable only after the launch of the ISO satellite. With the aim to investigate the pumping conditions of the 1612 MHz OH maser emission in more details we have searched the ISO Archive for SWS observations around 34.6 um of 1024 OH/IR sources with IRAS LRS spectra from compilation of Chen et al. (2001). Surprisingly, among 81 OH/IR sources which have appropriate SWS data only already reported objects: VY CMa, IRC+10420 and the Galactic center, show clear 34.6 um absorption line. We discuss possible reasons for non-detection of this pumping line.

astro-ph↗