Molecular Gas in Elliptical Galaxies: Distribution and Kinematics

I present interferometric images (~7" resolution) of CO emission in five elliptical galaxies and nondetections in two others. These data double the number of elliptical galaxies whose CO emission has been fully mapped. The sample galaxies have 10⁸ to 5×10⁹ M_solar of molecular gas distributed in mostly symmetric rotating disks with diameters of 2-12 kpc. Four out of the five molecular disks show remarkable alignment with the optical major axes of their host galaxies. The molecular masses are a few percent of the total dynamical masses that are implied if the gas is on circular orbits. If the molecular gas forms stars, it will make rotationally supported stellar disks that will be very similar in character to the stellar disks now known to be present in many ellipticals. Comparison of stellar kinematics to gas kinematics in NGC 4476 implies that the molecular gas did not come from internal stellar mass loss because the specific angular momentum of the gas is about 3 times larger than that of the stars.