Dust Grains and the Luminosity of Circumnuclear Water Masers in Active Galaxies

In previous calculations for the luminosities of 22 GHz water masers, the pumping is reduced and ultimately quenched with increasing depth into the gas because of trapping of the infrared (≈ 30-150 μm), spectral line radiation of the water molecule. When the absorption (and reemission) of infrared radiation by dust grains is included, we demonstrate that the pumping is no longer quenched but remains constant with increasing optical depth. A temperature difference between the grains and the gas is required. Such conditions are expected to occur, for example, in the circumnuclear masing environments created by X-rays in active galaxies. Here, the calculated 22 GHz maser luminosities are increased by more than an order of magnitude. Application to the well-studied, circumnuclear masing disk in the galaxy NGC 4258 yields a maser luminosity near that inferred from observations if the observed X-ray flux is assumed to be incident onto only the inner surface of the disk.