Molecular Gas in Elliptical Galaxies: Distribution and Kinematics

I present interferometric images (approx. 7" resolution) of CO emission infive elliptical galaxies and nondetections in two others. These data double thenumber of elliptical galaxies whose CO emission has been fully mapped. Thesample galaxies have 10^8 to 5x10^9 solar masses of molecular gas distributedin mostly symmetric rotating disks with diameters of 2 to 12 kpc. Four out ofthe five molecular disks show remarkable alignment with the optical major axesof their host galaxies. The molecular masses are a few percent of the totaldynamical masses which are implied if the gas is on circular orbits. If themolecular gas forms stars, it will make rotationally supported stellar diskswhich will be very similar in character to the stellar disks now known to bepresent in many ellipticals. Comparison of stellar kinematics to gas kinematicsin NGC 4476 implies that the molecular gas did not come from internal stellarmass loss because the specific angular momentum of the gas is about three timeslarger than that of the stars.Comment: 47 pages, 6 tables, 27 figures. Accepted by AJ, scheduled for August 200