CO in the bipolar radio continuum galaxy NGC 3367

CO(1-0) emission has been imaged at 2″ resolution in the central 10 kpc of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 3367. This galaxy has bipolar synchrotron lobes out to a radius of 6 kpc, straddling the compact nucleus. The peak molecular emission is in a source of radius 2″ (425 pc) centered on the galaxy nucleus. The molecular gas mass is ∼ 3 × 10 ₈ M⊙ in this peak and ∼5.9 × 10 ₈ M⊙ within a radius of 4.″5 (950 pc). The very large gas masses in the central source imply extinctions sufficiently high to completely obscure optical emission lines (e.g., broad-line region) associated with the nuclear radio source. The observed Balmer lines probably originate in the narrow-line region a few hundred parsecs from the nucleus. The CO emission in the central region is elongated northeastsouthwest, very similar to the position angle of the large-scale synchrotron lobes. This elongation is likely due to the nonaxisymmetric gravitational potential of the stellar bar. We infer that the northeast radio continuum lobe is on the far side of the galaxy and the southwest lobe is on the near side. The central mass of molecular gas is of sufficient mass to power the active galactic nucleus accretion luminosity for over 10 ⁸ yr at 3 M⊙ yr ^-1.