AKARI fluxes of ATLAS3D early-type galaxies

CO-detected galaxies show an excess above these correlations, uncorrelated with their stellar luminosities, indicating that they likely contain PAHs and dust of interstellar origin. PAH and dust luminosities of CO-detected galaxies show tight correlations with their molecular gas masses; the derived current SFRs are typically 0.01-1M_{sun}_/yr. These SFRs systematically decrease with stellar age at fixed stellar mass, while they correlate nearly linearly with stellar mass at fixed age.

The majority of local ETGs follow the same star formation law as local star-forming galaxies and their current SFEs do not depend on either stellar mass or age. Our results clearly indicate that molecular gas is fueling current star formation in local ETGs, which appear to acquire this gas via mechanisms regulated primarily by stellar mass. The current SFEs of local ETGs are similar to those of local star-forming galaxies, indicating that their low SFRs are likely due to smaller cold gas fractions rather than a suppression of star formation.