A High Resolution Study of the Atomic Hydrogen in CO-Rich Early-Type Galaxies

Abstract

We present an analysis of new and archival VLA HI observations of a sample of eleven early-type galaxies rich in CO, with detailed comparisons of CO and HI distributions and kinematics. The early-type sample consists of both lenticular and elliptical galaxies in a variety of environments. A range of morphologies and environments were selected in order to give a broader understanding of the origins, distribution, and fate of the cold gas in early-type galaxies. Six of the eleven galaxies in the sample are detected in both HI and CO. The H${}_2$ to HI mass ratios for this sample range from 0.2-120. The HI morphologies of the sample are consistent with that of recent HI surveys of early-type galaxies which also find a mix of HI morphologies and masses, low HI peak surface densities, and a lack of HI in early-type galaxies which reside in high density environments. The HI-detected galaxies have a wide range of HI masses (1.4$\times 10^6$ to 1.1$\times 10^{10}$ M${}_{\odot }$). There does not appear to be any correlation between the HI mass and morphology (E versus S0). When HI is detected, it is centrally peaked - there are no central kpc-scale central HI depressions like those observed for early-type spiral galaxies at similar spatial resolutions and scales. A kinematic comparison between the HI and CO indicates that both cold gas components share the same origin. The primary goal of this and a series of future papers is to better understand the relationship between the atomic and molecular gas in early-type galaxies, and to compare the observed relationships with those of spiral galaxies where this relationship has been studied in depth.

35 pages, 26 figures, Accepted to AJ. I have used emulateapj to make the article resemble how it may appear in the actual Journal. The result is not perfect, but will take up less paper and will hopefully be easier for you all to read

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Cited by in corpus (14)

• The Atlas3D project -- XXVII. Cold Gas and the Colours and Ages of Early-type Galaxies
• How Galactic Environment affects the Dynamical State of Molecular Clouds and their Star Formation Efficiency
• Giant Molecular Clouds in the Early-Type Galaxy NGC4526
• Virgo Filaments I: Processing of gas in cosmological filaments around the Virgo cluster
• Cold gas in a complete sample of group-dominant early-type galaxies
• The Diversity of Atomic Hydrogen in Slow Rotator Early-type Galaxies
• A Virgo Environmental Survey Tracing Ionised Gas Emission (VESTIGE).XII. Ionised gas emission in the inner regions of lenticular galaxies
• Hot gaseous atmospheres of rotating galaxies observed with XMM-Newton
• Catching Tidal Dwarf Galaxies at a Later Evolutionary Stage with ALFALFA
• VV 655 and NGC 4418: Implications of an interaction for the evolution of a LIRG
• The molecular gas content of shell galaxies
• Early-type galaxies at intermediate redshift observed with HST WFC3: perspectives on recent star-formation
• Down but not out: properties of the molecular gas in the stripped Virgo Cluster early-type galaxy NGC4526
• Observations of hydroxyl in early-type galaxies