Tracing total molecular gas in galaxies

This allows us to quantify the reservoir of H_2_ that is CO-dark and traced by the [CII]158um. We demonstrate that while the H2 traced by CO(1-0) can be negligible, the [CII] 518um can trace the total H2. We find 70% to 100 % of the total H2 mass is not traced by CO (1-0) in the dwarf galaxies, but is well-traced by [CII] 158um.

The CO-dark gas mass fraction correlates with the observed L[CII]/LCO(1-0) ratio. A conversion factor for [CII] 158um to total H_2_ and a new CO-to-total-MH_2_ as a function of metallicity, is presented. While low metallicity galaxies may have a feeble molecular reservoir as surmised from CO observations, the presence of an important reservoir of molecular gas, not detected by CO, can exist.

We suggest a general recipe to quantify the total mass of H2 in galaxies, taking into account the CO and [CII] observations. Accounting for this CO-dark H_2_ gas, we find that the star forming dwarf galaxies now fall on the Schmidt-Kennicuttrelation. Their star-forming efficiency is rather normal, since the reservoir from which they form stars is now more massive when introducing the [CII] measures of the total H_2_, compared to the little amount of H_2_ in the CO-emitting region.