Molecular gas in nearby powerful radio galaxies
  Powerful radio-AGN are normally hosted by massive elliptical galaxies which
are usually very poor in molecular gas. Nevertheless the gas is needed in the
very center to feed the nuclear activity. Thus it is important to study the
origin, the distribution and the kinematics of the molecular gas in such
objects. We have performed at the IRAM-30m telescope a survey of the CO(1-0)
and CO(2-1) emission in the most powerful radio galaxies of the Local Universe,
selected only on the basis of their radio-continuum fluxes. The main result of
this survey is the very low content in molecular gas of such galaxies compared
to FIR selected galaxies. The median value of the molecular gas mass, taking
into account the upper limits, is 1x10^8 Msun; if we calculate it for all the
galaxies together, and if we separate them into FR-I and FR-II type galaxies,
an important difference is found between them. Moreover, the CO spectra
indicates the presence of a central molecular gas disk in these radio galaxies.
Our results contrast with previous surveys, mainly selected through the FIR
emission, with a larger mass of molecular gas observed. The first results
indicate that minor mergers are good candidates to fuel the central part of the
radio galaxies of our sample.
