Observations of 12CO (J = 1-0) in 44 Cluster Galaxies

We present 12CO (J = 1–0) (2.6 mm, 115 GHz) spectra from 44 galaxies in clusters between 3500 and 8000 km s-1. The data were obtained using the NRAO 12 m telescope at Kitt Peak. Forty galaxies are detected. We deduce molecular gas masses from the line integrated intensities and upper limits for the four nondetections. Although the sample's first inclusion criterion is that a source have 60 μm flux greater than 350 mJy, the galaxies in this survey are found to be neither ultraluminous in the far-IR nor particularly rich in molecular gas, nor do they exhibit evidence of interactions. Neither the molecular gas mass nor the far-IR luminosity shows variations as functions of the galaxies' proximity to the cluster cores. Because the CO line widths and central velocities agree overall with the 21 cm widths and redshifts for these galaxies, we argue that CO spectra could be used in lieu of H I spectra for Tully-Fisher calculations.