The Molecular Gas Kinematics of HI Monsters

Our HI monster sample is a set of local HI-rich galaxies identified by the ALFALFA survey (Arecibo Legacy Fast Survey ALFA) at z<0.08. Intriguingly, they are also found with a relatively large molecular gas reservoir compared to the galaxies with similar stellar mass and color, yet their star formation rate is quite comparable to normal spirals. This makes our HI monsters good candidates of galaxies in the process of gas accretion which may lead to the stellar mass growth. One feasible explanation for their relatively low star formation activity for a given high cool gas fraction is the gas in monsters being too turbulent to form stars as normal spirals. In order to verify this hypothesis, we probe the molecular gas kinematics of 10 HI monsters which we observed using the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA). We utilize the tilted ring model to investigate what fraction of the molecular gas in the sample is regularly and smoothly rotating. In addition, we model the molecular gas disk using the GALMOD package of the Groningen Image Processing System (GIPSY) and compare with the observations to identify the gas which is offset from the 'co-planar differential rotation'. Based on the results, we discuss the possibility of gas accretion in the sample, and the potential origin of non-regularly rotating gas and the inefficient star formation.