The Recent Evolution of Early-Type Galaxies as Seen in their Cold Gas

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent observations of atomic and molecular gas in early-type galaxies, highlighting their role in galaxy assembly and star formation, and providing constraints for simulations.

Contribution

It offers new observational data from the Atlas3D project that links cold gas properties with galaxy evolution and simulation models.

Findings

Cold gas presence correlates with galaxy assembly history.

Observations constrain numerical simulations of galaxy evolution.

Data links stellar kinematics with gas dynamics.

Abstract

I present an overview of new observations of atomic and molecular gas in early-type galaxies, focusing on the Atlas3D project. Our data on stellar kinematics, age and metallicity, and ionized gas kinematics allow us to place the cold gas into the broader context of early-type galaxy assembly and star formation history. The cold gas data also provide valuable constraints for numerical simulations of early-type galaxies.