Discovery of CO absorption at z=0.05 in G0248+430

Abstract

Absorption lines in front of distant quasars are quite rare in the millimeter domain. They can however bring a very useful and complementary information to emission lines. We report here the detection with NOEMA of CO(1-0) and CN(1-0) lines in absorption, and confirmation of CO emission in the quasar/galaxy pair Q0248+430/G0248+430. The system G0248+430 corresponds to two merging galaxies (a Seyfert and a LINER) at z=0.0519 with a tidal tail just on the line of sight to the background quasar Q0248+430 at z = 1.313. Optical (CaII, NaI), HI-21cm and OH-1667 MHz absorption lines associated with the tidal tail of the foreground system have previously been detected toward the quasar, while four CO lines at different rotation J levels have been detected in emission from the foreground galaxies. New HI 21-cm line observations with the upgraded GMRT array are presented. We discuss the molecular content of the merging galaxies, and the physical conditions in the absorbing interstellar medium of the tidal tail.

6 pages, 4 figures, accepted in A&A

References in corpus (10)

• The 2014 KIDA network for interstellar chemistry
• VLT/UVES Observations of Interstellar Molecules and Diffuse Bands in the Magellanic Clouds
• Probing radio source environments via HI and OH absorption
• An ALMA Early Science survey of molecular absorption lines toward PKS1830-211 -- Analysis of the absorption profiles
• The low-frequency radio catalog of flat spectrum sources
• OH+ and H2O+ absorption toward PKS1830-211
• Submillimeter water and ammonia absorption by the peculiar z~0.89 interstellar medium in the gravitational lens of the PKS 1830-211 system
• HI 21-cm absorption survey of quasar-galaxy pairs: Distribution of cold gas around z<0.4 galaxies
• Molecular absorptions in high-z objects
• Using 21-cm absorption surveys to measure the average HI spin temperature in distant galaxies

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Blind HI and OH absorption line search: first results with MALS and uGMRT processed using ARTIP
• A molecular absorption line survey toward the AGN of Hydra-A
• OH in the diffuse interstellar medium: physical modelling and prospects with upcoming SKA precursor/pathfinder surveys
• Cold neutral hydrogen gas in galaxies
• First detections of CO absorption in the Magellanic Clouds and direct measurement of the CO-to-H${}_2$ ratio