COLD GASS, an IRAM legacy survey of molecular gas in massive galaxies: I. Relations between H2, HI, stellar content and structural properties

Abstract

We are conducting COLD GASS, a legacy survey for molecular gas in nearby galaxies. Using the IRAM 30m telescope, we measure the CO(1-0) line in a sample of ~350 nearby (D=100-200 Mpc), massive galaxies (log(M*/Msun)>10.0). The sample is selected purely according to stellar mass, and therefore provides an unbiased view of molecular gas in these systems. By combining the IRAM data with SDSS photometry and spectroscopy, GALEX imaging and high-quality Arecibo HI data, we investigate the partition of condensed baryons between stars, atomic gas and molecular gas in 0.1-10L* galaxies. In this paper, we present CO luminosities and molecular hydrogen masses for the first 222 galaxies. The overall CO detection rate is 54%, but our survey also uncovers the existence of sharp thresholds in galaxy structural parameters such as stellar mass surface density and concentration index, below which all galaxies have a measurable cold gas component but above which the detection rate of the CO line drops suddenly. The mean molecular gas fraction MH2/M* of the CO detections is 0.066+/-0.039, and this fraction does not depend on stellar mass, but is a strong function of NUV-r colour. Through stacking, we set a firm upper limit of MH2/M*=0.0016+/-0.0005 for red galaxies with NUV-r>5.0. The average molecular-to-atomic hydrogen ratio in present-day galaxies is 0.3, with significant scatter from one galaxy to the next. The existence of strong detection thresholds in both the HI and CO lines suggests that "quenching" processes have occurred in these systems. Intriguingly, atomic gas strongly dominates in the minority of galaxies with significant cold gas that lie above these thresholds. This suggests that some re-accretion of gas may still be possible following the quenching event.

Accepted for publications in MNRAS. 32 pages, 25 figures

References in corpus (9)

• UV Star Formation Rates in the Local Universe
• Dust Masses, PAH Abundances, and Starlight Intensities in the SINGS Galaxy Sample
• The Resolved Properties of Extragalactic Giant Molecular Clouds
• Environmental Effects on Satellite Galaxies: The Link Between Concentration, Size and Colour Profile
• Molecular Gas and Star Formation in the SAURON Early-type Galaxies
• The Atomic to Molecular Transition and its Relation to the Scaling Properties of Galaxy Disks in the Local Universe
• Understanding the H2/HI Ratio in Galaxies
• Rotational Widths for Use in the Tully-Fisher Relation. II. The Impact of Surface Brightness
• Molecular Gas Distribution in Barred and Non-Barred Galaxies along the Hubble Sequence

Cited by in corpus (231)

• The Co-Evolution of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes: Insights from Surveys of the Contemporary Universe
• Introducing the Illustris Project: the evolution of galaxy populations across cosmic time
• Combined CO & Dust Scaling Relations of Depletion Time and Molecular Gas Fractions with Cosmic Time, Specific Star Formation Rate and Stellar Mass
• xCOLD GASS: the complete IRAM-30m legacy survey of molecular gas for galaxy evolution studies
• The Evolution of the Star-forming Interstellar Medium across Cosmic Time
• The Universal Relation of Galactic Chemical Evolution: The Origin of the Mass-Metallicity Relation
• Molecular and atomic gas along and across the main sequence of star-forming galaxies
• The impact of interactions, bars, bulges, and AGN on star formation efficiency in local massive galaxies
• Spatially-Resolved Spectroscopic Properties of Low-Redshift Star-Forming Galaxies
• The cold interstellar medium of galaxies in the Local Universe
• The Constant Average Relationship between Dust-obscured Star Formation and Stellar Mass from $z=0$ to $z=2.5$
• ELUCID - Exploring the Local Universe with reConstructed Initial Density field I: Hamiltonian Markov Chain Monte Carlo Method with Particle Mesh Dynamics
• Abundant molecular gas and inefficient star formation in intracluster regions: Ram pressure stripped tail of the Norma galaxy ESO137-001
• ZFOURGE/CANDELS: On the Evolution of M* Galaxy Progenitors from z=3 to 0.5
• Why stellar feedback promotes disc formation in simulated galaxies
• MUFASA: Galaxy star formation, gas, and metal properties across cosmic time
• Are galactic star formation and quenching governed by local, global or environmental phenomena?
• Automated Mining of the ALMA Archive in the COSMOS Field (A3COSMOS): II. Cold Molecular Gas Evolution out to Redshift 6
• Discovery of Large Molecular Gas Reservoirs in Post-Starburst Galaxies
• Galaxy Cold Gas Contents in Modern Cosmological Hydrodynamic Simulations
• The impact of galactic properties and environment on the quenching of central and satellite galaxies: A comparison between SDSS, Illustris and L-Galaxies
• The equilibrium view on dust and metals in galaxies: Galactic outflows drive low dust-to-metal ratios in dwarf galaxies
• Atomic and molecular gas in IllustrisTNG galaxies at low redshift
• PHIBSS2: survey design and z=0.5-0.8 results. Molecular gas reservoirs during the winding-down of star formation
• Dust continuum emission as a tracer of gas mass in galaxies
• FIREbox: Simulating galaxies at high dynamic range in a cosmological volume
• Robust HI kinematics of gas-rich ultra-diffuse galaxies: hints of a weak-feedback formation scenario
• ALLSMOG: an APEX Low-redshift Legacy Survey for MOlecular Gas. I - molecular gas scaling relations, and the effect of the CO/H2 conversion factor
• The CALYMHA survey: Lya luminosity function and global escape fraction of Lya photons at z=2.23
• Gas Fraction and Depletion Time of Massive Star Forming Galaxies at z~3.2: No Change in Global Star Formation Process out to z>3
• The evolution of the cold interstellar medium in galaxies following a starburst
• From light to baryonic mass: the effect of the stellar mass-to-light ratio on the Baryonic Tully-Fisher relation
• The HETDEX Pilot Survey V: The Physical Origin of Lyman-alpha Emitters Probed by Near-infrared Spectroscopy
• Far-infrared surveys of galaxy evolution
• Evolution of the atomic and molecular gas content of galaxies in dark matter haloes
• HIGHz: A Survey of the Most HI-Massive Galaxies at z~0.2
• Mapping the average AGN accretion rate in the SFR-M* plane for Herschel selected galaxies at 0<z<2.5
• How Galactic Environment affects the Dynamical State of Molecular Clouds and their Star Formation Efficiency
• Massive quenched galaxies at z~0.7 retain large molecular gas reservoirs
• xGASS: Gas-rich central galaxies in small groups and their connections to cosmic web gas feeding
• BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey-XX: Molecular Gas in Nearby Hard X-ray Selected AGN Galaxies
• The impact of the observed baryon distribution in haloes on the total matter power spectrum
• A Far-Infrared Spectroscopic Survey of Intermediate Redshift (Ultra) Luminous Infrared Galaxies
• The origin of the atomic and molecular gas contents of early-type galaxies. I. A new test of galaxy formation physics
• CO line emission from galaxies in the Epoch of Reionization
• The physics of gas phase metallicity gradients in galaxies
• The ALMaQUEST Survey: V. The non-universality of kpc-scale star formation relations and the factors that drive them
• GASP. XXII The molecular gas content of the JW100 jellyfish galaxy at z~0.05: does ram pressure promote molecular gas formation?
• Disk Growth and Quenching
• The Properties of the Circumgalactic Medium in Red and Blue Galaxies: Results from the COS-GASS+COS-Halos Surveys
• The ISM scaling relations in DustPedia late-type galaxies: A benchmark study for the Local Universe
• The Close AGN Reference Survey (CARS). A massive multi-phase outflow impacting the edge-on galaxy HE1353-1917
• The Variation in Molecular Gas Depletion Time among Nearby Galaxies: What are the Main Parameter Dependencies?
• The colors of satellite galaxies in the Illustris Simulation
• VERTICO: The Virgo Environment Traced In CO Survey
• The ALMA Spectroscopic Survey in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: The nature of the faintest dusty star-forming galaxies
• Deep CO(1-0) Observations of z=1.62 Cluster Galaxies with Substantial Molecular Gas Reservoirs and Normal Star Formation Efficiencies
• The final data release of ALLSMOG: a survey of CO in typical local low-M* star-forming galaxies
• xGASS: Cold gas content and quenching in galaxies below the star forming main sequence
• The EDGE-CALIFA Survey: Using Optical Extinction to Probe the Spatially-Resolved Distribution of Gas in Nearby Galaxies
• The high molecular gas content, and the efficient conversion of neutral into molecular gas, in jellyfish galaxies
• CO Multi-line Imaging of Nearby Galaxies (COMING) IV. Overview of the Project
• xGASS: HI fueling of star formation in disk-dominated galaxies
• Nearly all Massive Quiescent Disk Galaxies have a Surprisingly Large Atomic Gas Reservoir
• A direct constraint on the gas content of a massive, passively evolving elliptical galaxy at z = 1.43
• ALMA measures rapidly depleted molecular gas reservoirs in massive quiescent galaxies at z~1.5
• Virgo Filaments I: Processing of gas in cosmological filaments around the Virgo cluster
• Constraining the HI-Halo Mass Relation From Galaxy Clustering
• The EDGE-CALIFA survey: The local and global relations between ${\Sigma }_{\ast }$ , ${\Sigma }_{SFR}$ and ${\Sigma }_{mol}$ that regulate star-formation
• Comparing galaxy formation in semi-analytic models and hydrodynamical simulations
• ALMaQUEST -- IV. The ALMA-MaNGA QUEnching and STar formation (ALMaQUEST) Survey
• A panchromatic spatially resolved analysis of nearby galaxies -- II. The main sequence - gas relation at sub-kpc scale in grand-design spirals
• Physical drivers of galaxies' cold-gas content: exploring environmental and evolutionary effects with DARK SAGE
• Low Gas Fractions Connect Compact Star-Forming Galaxies to their z ~ 2 Quiescent Descendants
• Star formation rates and stellar masses from machine learning
• The Typical Massive Quiescent Galaxy at z$\sim$3 is a Post-starburst
• How Gas Accretion Feeds Galactic Disks
• The role of galactic dynamics in shaping the physical properties of giant molecular clouds in Milky Way-like galaxies
• The First Maps of ${\kappa }_d$ -- the Dust Mass Absorption Coefficient -- in Nearby Galaxies, with DustPedia
• Pressure balance in the multiphase ISM of cosmologically simulated disk galaxies
• Galaxy Pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey - X: Does gas content alter star formation rate enhancement in galaxy interactions?
• A fundamental test for stellar feedback recipes in galaxy simulations
• JINGLE -- IV. Dust, HI gas and metal scaling laws in the local Universe
• Integral field spectroscopy of nearby QSOs II. The molecular gas content and condition for star formation
• The Interstellar Medium of Quiescent Galaxies and its Evolution With Time
• Direct Measurement of the HI-Halo Mass Relation through Stacking
• An ALMA CO(2-1) Survey of Nearby Palomar-Green Quasars
• The neutral gas content of post-merger galaxies
• Scaling relations and baryonic cycling in local star-forming galaxies: II. Gas content and star-formation efficiency
• Extremely Low Molecular Gas Content in a Compact, Quiescent Galaxy at z=1.522
• Extreme gas fractions in clumpy, turbulent disk galaxies at z~0.1
• The CO(3-2)/CO(1-0) luminosity line ratio in nearby star-forming galaxies and AGN from xCOLD GASS, BASS and SLUGS
• The Lyman Alpha Reference Sample: III. Properties of the Neutral ISM from GBT and VLA Observations
• What Drives Galaxy Quenching? Resolving Molecular Gas and Star Formation in the Green Valley
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): Gas Fuelling of Spiral Galaxies in the Local Universe I. - The Effect of the Group Environment on Star Formation in Spiral Galaxies
• VALES: I. The molecular gas content in star-forming dusty H-ATLAS galaxies up to z=0.35
• The EDGE-CALIFA Survey: Exploring the Star Formation Law through Variable Selection
• JADES + JEMS: A Detailed Look at the Buildup of Central Stellar Cores and Suppression of Star Formation in Galaxies at Redshifts 3 < z < 4.5
• The Diverse Molecular Gas Content of Massive Galaxies Undergoing Quenching at z~1
• Star Formation and Quenching of Central Galaxies from Stacked HI Measurements
• Lyα emission from galaxies in the Epoch of Reionization
• Dirt-cheap Gas Scaling Relations: Using Dust Absorption, Metallicity and Galaxy Size to Predict Gas Masses for Large Samples of Galaxies
• Fading AGN in Post-Starburst Galaxies
• The Gas-Star Formation Cycle in Nearby Star-forming Galaxies II. Resolved Distributions of CO and H$\alpha$ Emission for 49 PHANGS Galaxies
• CO observations of major merger pairs at z=0: Molecular gas mass and star formation
• The cosmic abundance of cold gas in the local Universe
• Cold Molecular Gas Along the Merger Sequence in Local Luminous Infrared Galaxies
• Molecular hydrogen in IllustrisTNG galaxies: carefully comparing signatures of environment with local CO & SFR data
• GASS 3505: the prototype of HI-excess, passive galaxies
• Gas accretion regulates the scatter of the mass-metallicity relation
• The global structure of magnetic fields and gas in simulated Milky Way-analogue galaxies
• Evolution induced by dry minor mergers onto fast-rotator S0 galaxies
• ALMA + VLT observations of a Damped Lyman-α absorbing galaxy: Massive, wide CO emission, gas-rich but with very low SFR
• Star formation activity of barred spiral galaxies
• The Molecular-Gas Main Sequence and Schmidt-Kennicutt relation are fundamental, the Star-Forming Main Sequence is a (useful) byproduct
• The resolved scaling relations in DustPedia: Zooming in on the local Universe
• EDGE: What shapes the relationship between HI and stellar observables in faint dwarf galaxies?
• Star Formation and Molecular Gas Diagnostics with Mid- and Far-Infrared Emission
• The variation in molecular gas depletion time among nearby galaxies: II the impact of galaxy internal structures
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: A Global and Moderately Resolved View of Mid-Infrared and CO Line Emission from Galaxies at the Start of the JWST Era
• The Tully-Fisher Relation of COLD GASS Galaxies
• A star formation study of the ATLAS3D early-type galaxies with the AKARI all-sky survey
• On the origin of nitrogen at low metallicity
• The small observed scale of AGN--driven outflows, and inside--out disc quenching
• SOFIA/FIFI-LS Full-disk [CII] Mapping and CO-dark Molecular Gas across the Nearby Spiral Galaxy NGC 6946
• SMT CO (2-1) Observations of Nearby Star-Forming Galaxies
• Molecular Gas Reservoirs in Massive Quiescent Galaxies at $\mathrm{z}\sim 0.7$ Linked to Late Time Star Formation
• A Detection of Molecular Gas Emission in the Host Galaxy of GRB 080517
• The host galaxy of GRB 980425 / SN1998bw: a collisional ring galaxy
• The role of molecular gas in galaxy transition in compact groups
• Estimating the molecular gas mass of low-redshift galaxies from a combination of mid-infrared luminosity and optical properties
• The molecular gas properties in local Seyfert 2 galaxies
• The ISM Properties and Gas Kinematics of a Redshift 3 Massive Dusty Star-forming Galaxy
• A new empirical method to estimate the molecular gas mass in galaxies
• The bivariate gas-stellar mass distributions and the mass functions of early- and late-type galaxies at $z\sim 0$
• ALMA shows that gas reservoirs of star-forming disks over the past 3 billion years are not predominantly molecular
• Scaling relations and baryonic cycling in local star-forming galaxies. III. Outflows, effective yields and metal loading factors
• A universal correlation between star-formation activity and molecular gas properties across environments
• Gas Content and Kinematics in Clumpy, Turbulent Star-forming Disks
• From haloes to galaxies -- II. The fundamental relations in star formation and quenching
• Resolved HI Imaging of a Population of Massive HI-Rich Galaxies with Suppressed Star Formation
• The Dependence of the Hierarchical Distribution of Star Clusters on Galactic Environment
• WISDOM project -- VI. Exploring the relation between supermassive black hole mass and galaxy rotation with molecular gas
• Spatially Resolved Dust, Gas, and Star Formation in the Dwarf Magellanic Irregular NGC4449
• JINGLE, a JCMT legacy survey of dust and gas for galaxy evolution studies: II. SCUBA-2 850 μm data reduction and dust flux density catalogues
• Early Science with the Large Millimeter Telescope: Exploring the Effect of AGN Activity on the Relationships Between Molecular Gas, Dust, and Star Formation
• Atomic and molecular gas as traced by [C II] emission
• The IBISCO survey: I. Multiphase discs and winds in the Seyfert galaxy Markarian 509
• The galaxy HI-(sub)halo connection and the HI spatial clustering of local galaxies
• The morphology and kinematics of neutral hydrogen in the vicinity of z=0 galaxies with Milky Way masses -- a study with the Illustris simulation
• Extreme Variation in Star Formation Efficiency Across a Compact, Starbursting Disk Galaxy
• Dissecting Nearby Galaxies with piXedfit: II. Spatially Resolved Scaling Relations Among Stars, Dust, and Gas
• An $\mathrm{H}\alpha$ Imaging Survey of the Low Surface Brightness Galaxies Selected from the Spring Sky Region of the 40% ALFALFA HI Survey
• Dynamics and Metallicity of Far-IR Selected Galaxies
• New empirical constraints on the cosmological evolution of gas and stars in galaxies
• The large molecular gas fraction of post-starburst galaxies at z > 1
• The major mechanism to drive turbulence in star-forming galaxies
• ISM conditions in z~0.2 Lyman-Break Analogs
• Probing the baryon cycle of galaxies with SPICA mid- and far-infrared observations
• Molecular gas properties of UV-luminous star-forming galaxies at low redshift
• The Activation of Galactic Nuclei and Their Accretion Rates are Linked to the Star Formation Rates and Bulge-types of Their Host Galaxies
• Do Galaxy Morphologies Really Affect the Efficiency of Star Formation during the Phase of Galaxy Transition?
• Oxygen yields as a constraint on feedback processes in galaxies
• The effect of diffuse background on the spatially-resolved Schmidt relation in nearby spiral galaxies
• xGASS: The connection between angular momentum, mass and atomic gas fraction in nearby galaxies
• The Lyman Alpha Reference Sample XI: Efficient Turbulence Driven Lyα Escape and the Analysis of IR, CO and [C II]158 μm
• HIghMass - High HI Mass, HI-Rich Galaxies at $z\sim 0$: Combined HI and H${}_2$ Observations
• The Bluedisk Survey: molecular gas distribution and scaling relations in the context of galaxy evolution
• Quantifying the cool ISM in radio AGNs: evidence for late-time re-triggering by galaxy mergers and interactions
• Large Molecular Gas Reservoirs in Star Forming Cluster Galaxies
• Molecular Gas Kinematics and Star Formation Properties of the Strongly-Lensed Quasar Host Galaxy RXS J1131-1231
• ALMA CO Observations of the Host Galaxies of Long-duration Gamma-ray Bursts. I: Molecular Gas Scaling Relations
• Unraveling the complex structure of AGN-driven outflows: IV. Comparing AGNs with and without strong outflows
• The ALMA Spectroscopic Survey in the HUDF: Constraining the Molecular Content at $\log (M_{\ast }/M_{\odot })\sim 9.5$ with CO stacking of MUSE detected $z\sim 1.5$ Galaxies
• Empirical Evidence of Non-Minimally Coupled Dark Matter in the Dynamics of Local Spiral Galaxies?
• The Local Star Formation Rate Surface Density And Metallicity Relation For Star-forming Galaxies
• The Column Densities of Molecular Gas across Cosmic Time: Bridging Observations and Simulations
• Constructing a multivariate distribution function with a vine copula: toward multivariate luminosity and mass functions
• Molecular gas in distant brightest cluster galaxies
• Star formation efficiency and AGN feedback in narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies with fast X-ray nuclear winds
• Molecular gas budget and characterization of intermediate-mass star-forming galaxies at $z\approx 2-3$
• The Impact of Wind Scalings on Stellar Growth and the Baryon Cycle in Cosmological Simulations
• The Arizona Molecular ISM Survey with the SMT: Survey Overview and Public Data Release
• Close Major Merger Pairs at $z=0$: Bulge-to-Total Ratio and Star Formation Enhancement
• Connecting the Cosmic Star Formation Rate with the Local Star Formation
• The Molecular Mass function of the Local Universe
• Molecular gas scaling relations for local star-forming galaxies in the low-$M_{\ast }$ regime
• The ALMaQUEST Survey XV: The Dependence of the Molecular-to-Atomic Gas Ratios on Resolved Optical Diagnostics
• Molecular Gas Properties in the Host Galaxy of GRB080207
• The Population of Galaxies that Contribute to The HI Mass Function
• The uncertain interstellar medium of high-redshift quiescent galaxies: Impact of methodology
• xCOLDGASS and xGASS: Radial metallicity gradients and global properties on the star-forming main sequence
• CO Multi-line Imaging of Nearby Galaxies (COMING). X. Physical conditions of molecular gas and the local SFR-Mass relation
• MusE GAs FLOw and Wind (MEGAFLOW) VII. A NOEMA pilot program to probe molecular gas in galaxies with measured circumgalactic gas flows
• Spatially Resolved Molecular Gas Properties of Host Galaxy of Type I Superluminous Supernova SN 2017egm
• SQuIGG$\vec{L}$E: Observational Evidence of Low Ongoing Star Formation Rates in Gas-Rich Post-Starburst Galaxies
• Evolution of Cosmic Molecular Gas Mass Density From z ~ 0 to z = 1 -1.5
• Molecular gas in super spiral galaxies
• The dust and cold gas content of local star forming galaxies
• Dark-ages reionization and galaxy formation simulation - IX. Economics of reionizing galaxies
• The relationship between cluster environment and molecular gas content of star-forming galaxies in the EAGLE simulation
• CO emissions from optically selected galaxies at z~0.1-0.2: Tight anti-correlation between molecular gas fraction and 4000 Åbreak strength
• Exploring the interplay of dust and gas phases in DustPedia star-forming galaxies
• Anatomy of galactic star formation history: Roles of different modes of gas accretion, feedback, and recycling
• Star formation across cosmic time
• The unusual ISM in Blue and Dusty Gas Rich Galaxies (BADGRS)
• The inflow and outflow rate evolution of local Milky Way-mass star-forming galaxies since z=1.3
• Cosmic evolution of molecular gas mass density from an empirical relation between ${\mathrm{L}}_{1.4GHz}$ and ${\mathrm{L}}_{\mathrm{CO}}^{\prime }$
• The ISM scaling relations using inner HI and an application of estimating dust mass
• Central star formation in double-peak gas rich radio galaxies
• Galaxy Manifold: Characterizing and understanding galaxies with two parameters
• The Origin of the Stellar Mass-Stellar Metallicity Relation in the Milky Way Satellites and beyond
• MASCOT -- An ESO-ARO legacy survey of molecular gas in nearby SDSS-MaNGA galaxies: I. first data release, and global and resolved relations between H_2 and stellar content
• LEGA-C stellar populations scaling relations. I: Chemo-archaeological downsizing trends at z~0.7
• Submillimeter galaxy overdensities around physically associated quasar pairs
• The link between galaxy structure properties and star formation in local galaxies
• Constraining galactic baryon cycle using the galaxy stellar-to-halo mass relations
• The cold gas and dust properties of red star-forming galaxies
• The Quest for the Missing Dust: I -- Restoring Large Scale Emission in Herschel Maps of Local Group Galaxies
• NIHAO-LG: The uniqueness of Local Group dwarf galaxies
• Selecting Post-Starburst Galaxies Based on Star Formation History
• Now you see it, now you don't: Star formation truncation precedes the loss of molecular gas by ~100 Myr in massive post-starburst galaxies at z~0.6
• On the scale-height of the molecular gas disc in Milky Way-like galaxies
• The Baryon Budget of Galaxies across the First Billion Years
• Radial Distributions of Star Formation and Gas-phase Metallicity in Spiral-Elliptical Galaxy Pairs
• Resolved molecular gas and star-formation in massive unquenched spirals : I. UGC 8179
• Atomic hydrogen reservoirs in quiescent galaxies at z = 0.4
• From the Densest Clusters to the Emptiest Voids: No Evidence For Environmental Effects on the Galaxy Size-Mass Relation at Low Redshift
• Spatially resolved stellar-to-total dynamical mass relation: Radial variations, gradients and profiles of galaxy stellar populations
• Large Molecular Gas Reservoirs in Ancestors of Milky Way-Mass Galaxies 9 Billion Years Ago
• EMBERS I: Low redshift post-starburst galaxies are frequently depleted in molecular gas relative to star forming progenitors