A catalog of 44 GHz methanol masers in massive star-forming regions. IV.
  The high-mass protostellar object sample
  We present a survey of 56 massive star-forming regions in the 44 GHz methanol
maser transition made with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA); 24 of the
56 fields showed maser emission. The data allow us to demonstrate associations,
at arcsecond precision, of the Class I maser emission with outflows, HII
regions, and shocks traced by 4.5 micron emission. We find a total of 83 maser
components with linewidths ranging from 0.17 to 3.3 km s$^{-1}$ with a nearly
flat distribution and a median value of 1.1 km s$^{-1}$. The relative
velocities of the masers with respect to the systemic velocity of the host
clouds range from $-$2.5 to 3.1 km s$^{-1}$ with a distribution peaking near
zero. We also study the correlation between the masers and the so-called
extended green objects (EGOs) from the GLIMPSE survey. Multiple sources in each
field are revealed from IR images as well as from centimeter continuum emission
from VLA archival data; in the majority of cases the 44 GHz masers are
positionally correlated with EGOs which seem to trace the younger sources in
the fields. We report a possible instance of a 44 GHz maser associated with a
low-mass protostar. If confirmed, this region will be the fifth known
star-forming region that hosts Class I masers associated with low-mass
protostars. We discuss three plausible cases of maser variability.
