VALES I: the molecular gas content in star-forming dusty H-ATLAS galaxies up to z = 0.35

We present an extragalactic survey using observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to characterize galaxy populations up to z = 0.35: the Valparaíso ALMA Line Emission Survey (VALES). We use ALMA Band-3 CO(1–0) observations to study the molecular gas content in a sample of 67 dusty normal star-forming galaxies selected from the Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (H-ATLAS). We have spectrally detected 49 galaxies at >5σ significance and 12 others are seen at low significance in stacked spectra. CO luminosities are in the range of (0.03–1.31) × 10^(10) K km s^(−1) pc^2, equivalent to log(M_(gas)/M_⊙)=8.9--10.9 assuming an αCO = 4.6 (K km s^(−1) pc^2)^(−1), which perfectly complements the parameter space previously explored with local and high-z normal galaxies. We compute the optical to CO size ratio for 21 galaxies resolved by ALMA at ∼3.5 arcsec resolution (6.5 kpc), finding that the molecular gas is on average ∼ 0.6 times more compact than the stellar component. We obtain a global Schmidt–Kennicutt relation, given by log[Σ_(SFR)/(M_⊙ yr^(−1)kpc^(−2))]=(1.26±0.02)×log[Σ_(MH2)/(M_⊙ pc^(−2))]−(3.6±0.2). We find a significant fraction of galaxies lying at ‘intermediate efficiencies’ between a long-standing mode of star formation activity and a starburst, specially at L_(IR) = 10^(11–12) L_⊙. Combining our observations with data taken from the literature, we propose that star formation efficiencies can be parametrized by log [SFR/M_(H2)] = 0.19 × (log L_(IR)− 11.45) − 8.26 − 0.41 × arctan [−4.84(logL_(IR) − 11.45)]. Within the redshift range we explore (z < 0.35), we identify a rapid increase of the gas content as a function of redshift