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| Paper: |
Cold Gas in Blue-Sequence E/S0s: Galaxies in Transition |
| Volume: |
423, Galaxy Wars: Star Formation and Stellar Populations in Interacting Galaxies |
| Page: |
338 |
| Authors: |
Wei, L. H.; Kannappan, S. J.; Vogel, S. N.; Baker, A. J. |
| Abstract: |
We examine the HI+ H2 content of blue-sequence E/S0s — a recently identified population of galaxies that are morphologically early type, but reside alongside spiral galaxies in color vs. stellar mass space. We test the idea that the majority of low-to-intermediate mass blue-sequence E/S0s may be settled products of past mergers evolving toward later-type morphology via disk regrowth. We find that blue-sequence E/S0s with stellar masses ≤ 4×1010 Msun have atomic gas-to-stellar mass ratios of 0.1 to > 1.0, comparable to those of spiral galaxies. Preliminary CO(1-0) maps reveal disk-like rotation of molecular gas in the inner regions of several of our blue-sequence E/S0s, which suggests that they may have gas disks suitable for stellar disk regrowth. At the current rate of star formation, many of our blue-sequence E/S0s will exhaust their atomic gas reservoirs in ≤ 3 Gyr. Over the same time period, most of these galaxies are capable of substantial growth in the stellar component. Star formation in blue-sequence E/S0s appears to be bursty, and likely involves inflow triggered by minor mergers and/or interactions. |
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