Cold gas in a complete sample of group-dominant early-type galaxies

TL;DR

This study investigates molecular and atomic gas in group-dominant early-type galaxies, revealing their low star formation rates, high AGN activity, and diverse gas acquisition mechanisms, with implications for galaxy evolution in groups.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive molecular gas survey of group-dominant early-type galaxies, highlighting their gas content, star formation, and AGN activity in a complete sample.

Findings

12 of 36 galaxies detected in CO emission

60+-16% of galaxies are AGN-dominated

At least 27 of 53 contain HI gas

Abstract

We present IRAM 30m and APEX telescope observations of CO(1-0) and CO(2-1) lines in 36 group-dominant early-type galaxies, completing our molecular gas survey of dominant galaxies in the Complete Local-volume Groups Sample. We detect CO emission in 12 of the galaxies at >4sigma significance, with molecular gas masses in the range 0.01-6x10^8 Msol, as well as CO in absorption in the non-dominant group member galaxy NGC 5354. In total 21 of the 53 CLoGS dominant galaxies are detected in CO and we confirm our previous findings that they have low star formation rates (0.01-1 Msol/yr) but short depletion times (<1Gyr) implying rapid replenishment of their gas reservoirs. Comparing molecular gas mass with radio luminosity, we find that a much higher fraction of our group-dominant galaxies (60+-16%) are AGN-dominated than is the case for the general population of ellipticals, but that there is no clear connection between radio luminosity and the molecular gas mass. Using data from the literature, we find that at least 27 of the 53 CLoGS dominant galaxies contain HI, comparable to the fraction of nearby non-cluster early type galaxies detected in HI and significantly higher that the fraction in the Virgo cluster. We see no correlation between the presence of an X-ray detected intra-group medium and molecular gas in the dominant galaxy, but find that the HI-richest galaxies are located in X-ray faint groups. Morphological data from the literature suggests the cold gas component most commonly takes the form of a disk, but many systems show evidence of galaxy-galaxy interactions, indicating that they may have acquired their gas through stripping or mergers. We provide improved molecular gas mass estimates for two galaxies previously identified as being in the centres of cooling flows, NGC 4636 and NGC 5846, and find that they are relatively molecular gas poor compared to our other detected systems.