GASKAP-OH: A New Deep Survey of Ground-State OH Masers and Absorption in the Southern Sky
Abstract
The Galactic ASKAP survey of OH (GASKAP-OH) is surveying the Milky Way Fourth Quadrant, the Galactic Centre, the Galactic Bulge and the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) in the 18-cm ground-state lines of the hydroxyl radical (OH), using Australia's Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope. With an expected per-channel rms sensitivity of 36 mJy/beam in its shallowest regions, and a velocity channel width of 0.1 km s-1, GASKAP-OH is expected to discover hundreds of new star-formation and evolved star OH masers, as well as extensive absorption from quasi-thermal OH throughout the Galactic Plane. We here summarise the science goals and technical specifications of the survey, and report initial detection results from test observations. GASKAP-OH is expected to run for several years and is an open collaboration. Data products will be made available to the wider community as soon as they are verified.
- Publication:
-
Cosmic Masers: Proper Motion Toward the Next-Generation Large Projects
- Pub Date:
- 2024
- DOI:
- 10.1017/S1743921323002405
- Bibcode:
- 2024IAUS..380..486D
- Keywords:
-
- masers;
- surveys;
- radio lines: ISM;
- radio lines: stars