The BIMA Survey of Nearby Galaxies is a systematic imaging study of the 3 mm CO J ¼ 1 0 molecular emission within the centers and disks of 44 nearby spiral galaxies. The typical spatial resolution of the survey is 6 00 or 360 pc at the average distance (12 Mpc) of the sample. The velocity resolution of the CO observations is 4 km s À1 , though most maps are smoothed to 10 km s À1 resolution. For 33 galaxies, multifield observations ensured that a region e190 00 (hDi ¼ 10 kpc) in diameter was imaged. For the remaining 11 galaxies, which had smaller optical diameters and were on average farther away, single-pointing observations imaged a 100 00 diameter (hDi ¼ 11 kpc) region. The sample was not chosen based on CO or infrared brightness; instead, all spirals were included that met the selection criteria of v 2000 km s À1 , ! À20, i 70 , D 25 < 70 0 , and B T < 11:0. The detection rate was 41/44 sources or 93%; of the three nondetections, one (M81) is known to have CO emission at locations outside the survey field of view. Fully sampled single-dish CO data were incorporated into the maps for 24 galaxies; these single-dish data comprise the most extensive collection of fully sampled, two-dimensional single-dish CO maps of external galaxies to date. We also tabulate direct measurements of the global CO flux densities for these 24 sources. For the remaining 20 sources, we collected sensitive single-dish spectra in order to evaluate the large-scale flux recovery. We demonstrate that the measured ratios of flux density recovered are a function of the signal-to-noise of the interferometric data. We examine the degree of central peakedness of the molecular surface density distributions and show that the distributions exhibit their brightest CO emission within the central 6 00 in only 20/44 or 45% of the sample. We show that all three Local Group spiral galaxies have CO morphologies that are represented in SONG, though the Milky Way CO luminosity is somewhat below the SONG average, and M31 and M33 are well below average. This survey provides a unique public database of integrated intensity maps, channel maps, spectra, and velocity fields of molecular emission in nearby galaxies. It also lays the groundwork for extragalactic surveys by more powerful future millimeter-wavelength interferometers like CARMA and ALMA.

We present the first results of the BIMA Survey of Nearby Galaxies (BIMA SONG), an imaging survey of the CO J=(1−0) emission in 44 nearby spiral galaxies at a typical resolution of 6 ′′ . BIMA SONG differs from previous highresolution CO surveys in that: (1) CO brightness was not an explicit selection criterion; (2) a larger area (200 ′′ diameter for most galaxies) of each galaxy was imaged; and (3) fully-sampled single-dish CO data (55 ′′ resolution) were obtained for over half of the sample galaxies, so all of the CO flux is imaged in these galaxies. Here we present CO maps for a subsample of 15 BIMA SONG galaxies for which we have also obtained near-infrared or optical broad-band data. The CO maps display a remarkable variety of molecular gas morphologies, and, as expected, the CO surface brightness distributions show considerably more substructure than the stellar light distributions, even when averaged over kiloparsec scales. The radial distribution of stellar light in galactic disks is generally characterized as an exponential. It is, therefore, of interest to investigate whether the molecular gas, which is the star-forming medium, has a similar distribution. Though our low-resolution single-dish radial profiles of CO emission can be -2described by simple exponentials, this is not true for the emission at our full 6 ′′ resolution. The scale lengths of the CO disks are correlated with the scale lengths of the stellar disks with a mean ratio of the scale lengths of about one. There is, however, considerable intrinsic scatter in the correlation. We also find that: (1) there is also a weak correlation between the ratio of K-band to CO luminosity and Hubble type; (2) in half of the galaxies presented here, CO emission does not peak at the location of the stellar nucleus; (3) averaged over the inner kiloparsec, the CO emission in one-half of the galaxies exhibits an excess over that expected from an exponential disk which is similar to the excess in stellar light caused by the bulge stars; and (4) this excess CO emission may be due to an increase in the total molecular gas content in the bulge region, or alternatively, to an increase in the CO emissivity caused by the increased pressure of the bulge region.

We present high-resolution CO, HCN, and 13 CO maps of the inner arcminute of NGC 1068. The maps were made by combining observations from the Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Association (BIMA) interferometer with single-dish data from the NRAO 12 m telescope; the maps therefore do not su er the usual interferometric problems associated with the lack of small spatial frequency visibilities. Several features appear in the CO map which have not previously been observed: (1) a rm detection of CO line emission from a compact region centered on the nucleus of the galaxy; (2) the spectrum of the unresolved nuclear emission shows a triplet velocity structure characteristic of kinematically independent regions; and (3) the detection of a molecular bar, the extent and position angle of which are in good agreement with the 2 m stellar bar. As seen in previous high-resolution images, the most intense CO emission is nonnuclear at a typical distance of 15 00 from the center of NGC 1068. The structure and kinematics of this emission imply that this gas is distributed along the inner spiral arms and not in a ring. The bar's kinematic in uence on the molecular gas in the spiral arms is modest, with typical ordered noncircular motions of < 30 km s 1 in the plane of the galaxy. Interior to the spiral arms, the bar's in uence is more dramatic, as re ected by the twisted isovelocity contours in the CO and HCN velocity elds. We derive a pattern speed for the bar of 150{170 km s 1 kpc 1 . The position angle of the bar, 63 , is close to that of the jet emanating from the nucleus, 33 .The surface density of molecular gas within the central 100 pc radius of NGC 1068 is the same as that in the central 200 pc radius in the Milky Way to within the uncertainties. There is evidence for an m = 1 kinematic mode in NGC 1068; we nd the kinematic center of rotation to be displaced from the radio continuum center by about 2.9 00 , or 200 pc. The HCN image, in agreement with recent results from other interferometers and in contrast to the CO map, shows a strong concentration of emission centered on the nucleus. The ratio of integrated intensities of the HCN emission to that of CO is about 0.6 and is the highest ratio measured in the central region of any galaxy. The 13 CO emission follows the general distribution of the CO emission. The average CO/ 13 CO ratio of integrated intensities in the spiral arms is about 13; this is similar to what is observed in the centers of other nearby galaxies.