Tending the Fire: A molecular gas study of hard X-ray selected AGN from the BASS survey.

Over the last 30 years the importance of host galaxy molecular gas for growing black holes has been intensely debated. We have observed a a volume-limited sample of 220 nearby AGN (0.01 < z < 0.05) using the CO 2-1 line with the JCMT and APEX telescopes. The AGN are selected from the Swift-BAT all sky hard X-ray survey. We compare these AGN host galaxies to inactive galaxies selected with the IRAM 30m COLD GASS survey to understand trends with host morphology and stellar mass. We also study how molecular gas fraction is related to various AGN properties (Eddington ratio, black hole mass, bolometric luminosity, column density) from the BASS survey. Overall we find that AGN reside in galaxies with higher overall gas fractions than inactive galaxies of matched morphology and stellar mass, contain rare gas rich ellipticals, and the highest Eddington ratio AGN have higher gas fractions.