An Infrared Photometric Study of Galaxies with Extragalactic H2O Maser Sources

Abstract

All galaxies with extragalactic H2O maser sources observed so far are collected. With the 2MASS and the IRAS photometric data an infrared study is performed on those galaxies. By a comparison between the H2O maser detected sources and non-detected sources in the infrared it is indicated that infrared properties in the IRAS 12–25 μm and 60–100 μm are important for producing H2O masers in galaxies. It is also found that the H2O maser galaxies with different nuclear activity types have rather different infrared properties mainly in the IRAS 12–60 μm region.