From gas to stars
To better understand the connection between atomic and molecular gas and star formation, we are conducting COLD GASS, a large program at the IRAM 30m telescope.
This project builds upon the multi-wavelength data set accumulated by the Galex Arecibo SDSS Survey (GASS) - a survey designed to measure the atomic hydrogen content for an unbiased sample of 1000 massive galaxies with SDSS optical spectra and GALEX UV imaging.
Using the IRAM 30m telescope, we will obtain accurate and homogeneous molecular gas masses for a subset of ~300 galaxies from the GASS sample. The data will allow us to understand the balance between atomic and molecular gas in nearby galaxies, and how these gas properties scale with other global galaxy properties such as stellar masses and star formation rates.
Some highlights from COLD GASS were featured on the MPA website in October 2011. Read the article here.
NEWS! February 2012 : COLD GASS paper 3 (Kauffmann et al. 2012) is accepted for publication. It presents comparisons between the observed cold gas properties of local galaxies and the predictions of semi-analytic models of galaxy formation. The complete catalog of 308 galaxies with IRAM measurements used in that work is now available on the data page.