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08-04-2021
Colloquium: MaserDB.net: star formation signposts archive and statistical analysis tool
| Submitter: | Dmitry A. Ladeyschikov |
| Description: | Maser emission is proven to be an efficient probe of star formation, however, accessing this rich source of information takes some work. Due to the variability of maser emission, a single observation does not provide sufficient information on each source. Moreover, only interferometric studies can reveal spatial distribution and kinematic structure of a maser cluster. Usually a combination of single-dish monitoring and interferometric study is required to reveal the nature of maser emission in a source. Gathering of such information for all known maser sites (~7000 and counting) is impossible due to limited observation time and resources. However, since the maser emission discovery, the science community has already conducted many maser observations. Analysis of the archival data allows us to study the astrophysical sources in many different maser species (e.g. CH3OH, OH, H2O), transitions, and observational epochs. When combined, this information provides a comprehensive view of each star formation region. The catch is that there has been no effective way of searching and comparing data from the literature. We present the MaserDB http://maserdb.net/) database of astrophysical masers which is designed to study published maser data using graphical interface and capability of structured query language (SQL). Currently the database contains ~98% of published data on methanol masers and ~85% of data on water masers in the star formation regions. The maser database can be effectively used to study individual astrophysical objects, prepare interferometric proposals, and obtain statistics of maser emission in different samples of sources. In this talk, the primary functionality of the web interface and possibilities of using the maser database for science research will be covered. The work on the water maser database is supported by the Russian Science Foundation grant 20-72-00137. |
| Copyright: | Image credit: Dmitry A. Ladeyschikov / Maserdb.net |
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