Atomic Hydrogen Clues to the Formation of Counterrotating Stellar Discs
  We present interferometric HI observations of six double-disc stellar
counterrotator ("2$\sigma$") galaxies from the Atlas3D sample. Three are
detected in HI emission; two of these are new detections. NGC 7710 shows a
modestly asymmetric HI disc, and the atomic gas in PGC 056772 is centrally
peaked but too poorly resolved to identify the direction of rotation. IC 0719,
the most instructive system in this study, shows an extended, strongly warped
disc of 43 kpc diameter, with a faint tail extending towards its neighbor IC
0718. The gas has likely been accreted from this external source during an
encounter whose geometry directed the gas into misaligned retrograde orbits
(with respect to the primary stellar body of IC 0719). In the interior, where
dynamical time-scales are shorter, the HI has settled into the equatorial plane
forming the retrograde secondary stellar disc. This is the first direct
evidence that a double-disc stellar counterrotator could be formed through the
accretion of retrograde gas. However, the dominant formation pathway for the
formation of $2\sigma$ galaxies is still unclear. The Atlas3D sample shows some
cases of the retrograde accretion scenario and also some cases in which a
scenario based on an unusually well-aligned merger is more likely.
