CO investigation of z=0.4-1.5 galaxies

Abstract

We report on the results of an IRAM-30m search for CO emission lines in three galaxies at intermediate redshifts. The idea was to investigate the molecular content of galaxies bright in the infrared at z=0.4-1.5, a redshift desert for molecular line studies, poorly investigated as of yet. We integrated 8-10h per source and did not succeed in detecting any of the sources. From our upper limits, we are able to constrain the molecular gas content in these systems to less than 4 to 8 x 10^9 Mo, assuming a CO-to-H_2 conversion factor (α=0.8 Mo/(K km s^-1 pc^2)). We stress the current difficulty of selecting sources with a detectable molecular content, a problem that will be faced by the ALMA First Science projects.

6 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics