The Atlas3D project -- XIII. Mass and morphology of HI in early-type
  galaxies as a function of environment
  We present the Atlas3D HI survey of 166 nearby early-type galaxies (ETGs)
down to M(HI)~10^7 M_sun. We detect HI in ~40% of all ETGs outside the Virgo
cluster and in ~10% of all ETGs inside it. This demonstrates that it is common
for non-cluster ETGs to host HI. The HI morphology varies from regular
discs/rings (the majority of the detections) to unsettled gas distributions.
The former are either small discs (M(HI)<10^8 M_sun) confined within the
stellar body and sharing the same kinematics of the stars, or large discs/rings
(M(HI) up to 5x10^9 M_sun) extending to tens of kpc from the host galaxy and
frequently kinematically decoupled from the stars. Neutral hydrogen provides
material for star formation in ETGs. Galaxies with central HI exhibit
signatures of star formation in ~70% of the cases, ~5 times more frequently
than galaxies without central HI. The central ISM is dominated by molecular
gas. In ETGs with a small gas disc the conversion of HI into H_2 is as
efficient as in spirals. The ETG HI mass function has M*~2x10^9 M_sun and
slope=-0.7. ETGs host much less HI than spirals as a family. However, a
significant fraction of them is as HI-rich as spirals. The main difference
between ETGs and spirals is that the former lack the high-column-density HI
typical of the bright stellar disc of the latter. We find an envelope of
decreasing M(HI) with increasing environment density. The gas-richest ETGs live
in the poorest environments (where star-formation is more common), galaxies in
the centre of Virgo have the lowest HI content, and the cluster outskirts are a
transition region. We find an HI morphology-density relation. At low
environment density HI is mostly distributed on large discs/rings. More
disturbed HI morphologies dominate environment densities typical of rich
groups, confirming the importance of processes occurring on a galaxy-group
scale for the evolution of ETGs.
