Megamasers as probes of galaxy mass spectrum evolution

Extract

OH megamasers having very high luminosities in the spectral line can be effectively used for the probing of the evolutionary properties of the galaxies in the earliest cosmological epochs. The frequency shift of the emission line uniqually determines the redshift z, which tells about the epoch of emission. One of the important cosmological problems is the investigation of the galaxy mass spectrum in the expanding Universe. There is the empirical relation between the OH and far-infrared luminosities of galaxies. Therefore, if in the earliest cosmological epochs, there were galaxies with sufficient powerful infrared excesses and containing molecular material, they can be detected using the observations of their OH maser emission. The interacting and merging galaxies can be considered as the best candidates for such objects.