Cross-calibration of CO- vs dust-based gas masses and assessment of the dynamical mass budget in Herschel-SDSS Stripe82 galaxies

Abstract

We present a cross-calibration of CO- and dust-based molecular gas masses at $z \leqslant 0.2$. Our results are based on a survey with the IRAM 30-m telescope collecting CO(1-0) measurements of 78 massive ($\log M_{\star} / M_{\odot} > 10$) galaxies with known gas-phase metallicities, and with IR photometric coverage from WISE (22 $\mu$m ) and Herschel SPIRE (250, 350, 500 $\mu$m). We find a tight relation ($\sim 0.17$ dex scatter) between the gas masses inferred from CO and dust continuum emission, with a minor systematic offset of 0.05 dex. The two methods can be brought into agreement by applying a metallicity-dependent adjustment factor ($\sim 0.13$ dex scatter). We illustrate that the observed offset is consistent with a scenario in which dust traces not only molecular gas, but also part of the ${\rm H \small I}$ reservoir, residing in the ${\rm H_2}$-dominated region of the galaxy. Observations of the CO(2-1) to CO(1-0) line ratio for two thirds of the sample indicate a narrow range in excitation properties, with a median ratio of luminosities $ \left\langle R_{21} \right\rangle \sim 0.64 $. Finally, we find dynamical mass constraints from spectral line profile fitting to agree well with the anticipated mass budget enclosed within an effective radius, once all mass components (stars, gas and dark matter) are accounted for.