Martin Bureau

Title:Molecular Gas in Early-type Galaxies and the Quest for Supermassive Black Hole Masses

Abstract:
I will first review the molecular gas content of early-type galaxies, revealing not only that they do 
unexpectedly harbour much cold gas, but also that its spatially-resolved kinematics can be 
used to establish its origin. More importantly, the molecular gas turns out to be an excellent, 
arguably the best tracer of the circular velocity in early-type galaxies, thus allowing accurate 
total/dynamical mass measurements (and straightforward studies of the Tully-Fisher relation of 
early-type galaxies across redshifts via CO). Second, I will show that CO can be used to easily 
and accurately measure the mass of the supermassive black holes lurking at galaxy centres, 
opening the way for literaly hundreds of measurements across the Hubble sequence with a 
unique method. The same data allow to study the spatially-resolved properties of giant 
molecular cloud populations in early-type galaxies for the first time.