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Description
It is not yet known if the properties of molecular gas in distant protocluster galaxies are significantly acted by their environment as galaxies are in local clusters. Through a deep, 64 hours of effective on-source integration with the Australian Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), we discovered a massive, M_mol_=2.0+/-0.2x0^11^M_{sun}_, extended, ~40kpc, CO(1-0)-emitting disk in the protocluster surrounding the radio galaxy, MRC1138-262. The galaxy, at z_CO_=2.1478, is a clumpy, massive disk galaxy, M*~5x10^11^M_{sun}_, which lies 250kpc in projection from MRC1138-262 and is a known H{alpha} emitter, named HAE229. This source has a molecular gas fraction of ~30%. The CO emission has a kinematic gradient along its major axis, centered on the highest surface brightness rest-frame optical emission, consistent with HAE229 being a rotating disk. Surprisingly, a significant fraction of the CO emission lies outside of the UV/optical emission. In spite of this, HAE229 follows the same relation between star-formation rate and molecular gas mass as normal field galaxies. HAE229 is the first CO(1-0) detection of an ordinary, star-forming galaxy in a protocluster.We compare a sample of cluster members at z>0.4 that are detected in low-order CO transitions, with a similar sample of sources drawn from the field.We confirm findings that the CO-luminosity and full-width at half maximum (FWHM) are correlated in starbursts and show that this relation is valid for normal high-z galaxies as well as for those in overdensities. We do not find a clear dichotomy in the integrated Schmidt-Kennicutt relation for protocluster and field galaxies. Our results suggest that environment does not have an impact on the "star-formation electronic efficiency" or the molecular gas content of high-redshift galaxies. Not finding any environmental dependence in these characteristics, especially for such an extended CO disk, suggests that environmentally-specific processes such as ram pressure stripping do not operate electronic efficiently in (proto)clusters.
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