The RMS Survey: Ammonia and water maser analysis of massive star forming
  regions
  The Red MSX Source (RMS) survey has identified a sample of ~1200 massive
young stellar objects (MYSOs), compact and ultra compact HII regions from a
sample of ~2000 MSX and 2MASS colour selected sources. We have used the 100 m
Green Bank telescope to search for 22-24 GHz water maser and ammonia (1,1),
(2,2) and (3,3) emission towards ~600 RMS sources located within the northern
Galactic plane. We have identified 308 H2O masers which corresponds to an
overall detection rate of ~50%. Abridged: We detect ammonia emission towards
479 of these massive young stars, which corresponds to ~80%. Ammonia is an
excellent probe of high density gas allowing us to measure key parameters such
as gas temperatures, opacities, and column densities, as well as providing an
insight into the gas kinematics. The average kinetic temperature, FWHM line
width and total NH3 column density for the sample are approximately 22 K, 2
km/s and 2x10^{15} cm^{-2}, respectively. We find that the NH3 (1,1) line width
and kinetic temperature are correlated with luminosity and finding no
underlying dependence of these parameters on the evolutionary phase of the
embedded sources, we conclude that the observed trends in the derived
parameters are more likely to be due to the energy output of the central source
and/or the line width-clump mass relationship. The velocities of the peak H2O
masers and the NH3 emission are in excellent agreement with each other, which
would strongly suggest an association between the dense gas and the maser
emission. Moreover, we find the bolometric luminosity of the embedded source
and the isotropic luminosity of the H2O maser are also correlated. We conclude
from the correlations of the cloud and water maser velocities and the
bolometric and maser luminosity that there is a strong dynamical relationship
between the embedded young massive star and the H2O maser.
