A sensitive search for water masers associated with star formation regions in the Local Group Galaxy NGC 6822

Abstract

We report the results of a sensitive search for water maser emission in the Local Group Galaxy NGC 6822 with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array. The observations provide tentative single-epoch detections of four candidates, associated with two infrared-bright star formation regions (Hubble I/III and Hubble IV). The candidate maser detections are all offset from the velocity range where strong emission from Hi neutral gas is observed towards NGC 6822, with the closest offset by $\sim\!40\, \mathrm{kms}^{-1}$ . Our observations include the location of NL1K, a previous tentative water maser detection in NGC 6822. We do not detect any emission from this location with a sensitivity limit approximately a factor of 5 better than the original Sardina Radio Telescope observations.