Star formation in E/S0 galaxies

While high-mass blue-sequence E/S0s often resemble young merger or interaction remnants likely to fade to the red sequence, we focus on blue-sequence E/S0s with lower stellar masses (M_*_<a fewx10^10^M_{sun}_), which are characterized by fairly regular morphologies and low-density field environments where fresh gas infall is possible.

This population may provide an evolutionary link between early-type galaxies and spirals through disk regrowth. Focusing on atomic gas reservoirs, we present new GBT HI data for 27 E/S0s on both sequences as well as a complete tabulation of archival HI data for other galaxies in the Nearby Field Galaxy Survey. Normalized to stellar mass, the atomic gas masses for 12 of the 14 blue-sequence E/S0s range from 0.1 to >1.0, demonstrating that morphological transformation is possible if the detected gas can be converted into stars.