Discovery of a Small Central Disk of CO and HI in the Merger Remnant NGC
  34
  We present CO(1-0) and HI(21-cm) observations of the central region of the
wet merger remnant NGC 34. The Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave
Astronomy (CARMA) observations detect a regularly rotating disk in CO with a
diameter of 2.1 kpc and a total molecular hydrogen mass of ($2.1 \pm 0.2)
\times10^9~M_\odot$. The rotation curve of this gas disk rises steeply,
reaching maximum velocities at 1" (410 pc) from the center. Interestingly, HI
observations done with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array show that the
absorption against the central continuum has the exact same velocity range as
the CO in emission. This strongly suggests that the absorbing HI also lies
within 1" from the center, is mixed in and corotates with the molecular gas. A
comparison of HI absorption profiles taken at different resolutions (5"-45")
shows that the spectra at lower resolutions are less deep at the systemic
velocity. This provides evidence for HI emission in the larger beams, covering
the region from 1 kpc to 9 kpc from the center. The central rapidly rotating
disk was likely formed either during the merger or from fall-back material.
Lastly, the radio continuum flux of the central source at mm wavelengths
($5.4\pm1.8$ mJy) is significantly higher than expected from an extrapolation
of the synchrotron spectrum, indicating the contribution of thermal free-free
emission from the central starburst.
