95GHz methanol maser survey toward GLIMPSE EGOs

We report the results of a systematic survey for 95GHz class I methanol masers toward a new sample of 192 massive young stellar object candidates associated with ongoing outflows (known as extended green objects or EGOs) identified from the Spitzer Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire (GLIMPSE) survey. The observations were made with the Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF) Mopra 22m radio telescope and resulted in the detection of 105 new 95GHz class I methanol masers.

For 92 of the sources our observations provide the first identification of a class I maser transition associated with these objects (i.e., they are new class I methanol maser sources). Our survey proves that there is indeed a high detection rate (55%) of class I methanol masers toward EGOs. Comparison of the GLIMPSE point sources associated with EGOs with and without class I methanol maser detections shows that they have similar mid-IR colors, with the majority meeting the color selection criteria -0.6<[5.8]-[8.0]<1.4 and 0.5<[3.6]-[4.5]<4.0.