ALMA observations of cold molecular gas filaments trailing rising radio bubbles in PKS 0745-191

We present ALMA observations of the CO(1-0) and CO(3-2) line emission tracing filaments of cold molecular gas in the central galaxy of the cluster PKS 0745-191. The total molecular gas mass of 4.6 ± 0.3 × 109 M⊙, assuming a Galactic XCO factor, is divided roughly equally between three filaments each extending radially 3–5 kpc from the galaxy centre. The emission peak is located in the SE filament ∼ 1 arcsec (2 kpc) from the nucleus. The velocities of the molecular clouds in the filaments are low, lying within ± 100 km s−1 of the galaxy's systemic velocity. Their FWHMs are less than 150 km s−1, which is significantly below the stellar velocity dispersion. Although the molecular mass of each filament is comparable to a rich spiral galaxy, such low velocities show that the filaments are transient and the clouds would disperse on