Probing the molecular gas content of galaxies in an over-dense group at z~0.7: A test case for environmental quenching
We investigated the impact of group environment on molecular gas reservoirs at an intermediate redshift by observing the CO(2-1) emission from the galaxy group COSMOS-Gr30 at $z \sim 0.7$ with the Institut de Radioastronomie Millimetrique (IRAM) NOrthern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA) and 30m telescope. This dense environment, located at the intersection of large-scale cosmic web filaments hosts a large ($\sim 10^{4}$ kpc$^{2}$) ionized gas structure revealed by MUSE. We detect CO emission in four galaxies in the group with a signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) greater than five and derive upper limits for the remaining group members with secure spectroscopic redshifts. Stacked measurements indicate that group galaxies exhibit, on average, molecular gas contents reduced by $\sim 0.5$ dex relative to field scaling relations, corresponding to gas fractions that are $20- 40\%$ of those found in typical main-sequence galaxies. Although the uncertainties are significant, this suggests that environmental processes efficiently deplete molecular gas reservoirs in the galaxies of this group. The 30m observations place an upper limit on the molecular gas associated with the extended ionized structure, $M_{\rm gas} < 2 \times 10^{10} \rm M_\odot$, implying that less than a third of the gas in the intragroup medium is in a cold, star-forming phase. Together, these results show how environmental mechanisms in dense group environments act to remove or suppress molecular gas within galaxies, capturing quenching processes in action.