On the nuclear obscuration of H2O maser galaxies
  To shed light onto the circumnuclear environment of 22 GHz H2O maser
galaxies, we have analyzed some of their multi-wavelength properties, including
the far infrared luminosity (FIR), the luminosity of the [O III]\lambda5007
emission line, the nuclear X-ray luminosity, and the equivalent width of the
neutral iron Ka emission line (EW (Ka)). Our statistical analysis includes a
total of 85 sources, most of them harboring an active galactic nucleus (AGN).
There are strong anti-correlations between EW (Ka) and two "optical thickness
parameters", i.e. the ratios of the X-ray luminosity versus the presumably more
isotropically radiated [O III] and far infrared (FIR) luminosities. Based on
these anti-correlations, a set of quantitative criteria, EW (Ka) > 300eV,
L_{2-10keV} < 2L_[O III] and L_{FIR} > 600L_{2-10keV} can be established for
Compton-thick nuclear regions. 18 H2O maser galaxies belong to this category.
There are no obvious correlations between the EW (Ka), the [O III] luminosity
and the isotropic H2O maser luminosity. When comparing samples of Seyfert 2s
with and without detected H2O maser lines, there seem to exist differences in
EW (Ka) and the fraction of Compton-thick nuclei. This should be studied
further. For AGN masers alone, there is no obvious correlation between FIR and
H2O maser luminosities. However, including masers associated with star forming
regions, a linear correlation is revealed. Overall, the extragalactic FIR-H2O
data agree with the corresponding relation for Galactic maser sources,
extrapolated by several orders of magnitude to higher luminosities.
