W51 Main NH3 and CH3OH data cubes

Abstract

Observations of NH3 toward the W51 complex were conducted usi Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (JVLA) of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)1 in the B configuration.

By using the broadband JVLA K- and Ka-band receivers, we observed a total of five metastable inversion transitions of NH3: (J,K) = (6, 6), (7, 7), (9, 9), (10, 10), and (13, 13) at the 1cm band with frequencies ranging from ~25GHz for the (6, 6) line to ~33GHz for the (13, 13) line. Transitions were observed in pairs of independently tunable basebands during 6h tracks (two targets per track: W51 - this paper; NGC 7538 IRS1 - Paper I, Goddi et al., 2015A&A...573A.108G) on three different dates in 2012: the (6, 6) and (7, 7) lines on May 31 at K-band, the (9, 9) and (13, 13) lines on June 21, and the (10, 10) transition on August 7, both at Ka-band. Each baseband had eight sub-bands with a 4MHz bandwidth (~40km/s at 30GHz), providing a total coverage of 32MHz (~320km/s at 30GHz). Each sub-band consisted of 128 channels with a separation of 31.25kHz (~0.3km/s at 30GHz). The typical on-source integration time was about 80min. Each transition was observed with fast switching, where 80s scans on target were alternated with 40s scans on the nearby (1.2° on the sky) QSO J1924+1540 (measured flux density 0.6-0.7Jy, depending on frequency). We derived absolute flux calibration from observations of 3C 48 (Sν=0.5-0.7Jy, depending on frequency), and bandpass calibration from observations of 3C 84 (Sν=27-29Jy, depending on frequency). (2 data files).