2012ApJ...750...92X

We report CO detections in 17 out of 19 infrared ultraluminous QSO (IR QSO) hosts observed with the IRAM 30 m telescope. The cold molecular gas reservoir in these objects is in a range of (0.2-2.1)x10¹⁰ M_☉ (adopting a CO-to-H₂ conversion factor α_CO= 0.8 M_☉(K km/s.pc2)^–1). We find that the molecular gas properties of IR QSOs, such as the molecular gas mass, star formation efficiency (L_FIR/L'_CO), and CO (1-0) line widths, are indistinguishable from those of local ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs). A comparison of low- and high-redshift CO-detected QSOs reveals a tight correlation between L_FIR and L'_CO(1–0)for all QSOs. This suggests that, similar to ULIRGs, the far-infrared emissions of all QSOs are mainly from dust heated by star formation rather than by active galactic nuclei (AGNs), confirming similar findings from mid-infrared spectroscopic observations by Spitzer. A correlation between the AGN-associated bolometric luminosities and the CO line luminosities suggests that star formation and AGNs draw from the same reservoir of gas and there is a link between star formation on ∼kpc scale and the central black hole accretion process on much smaller scales.