Counter-Rotating Gaseous Disk and Star Formation in the S0 Galaxy NGC 934

Using long-slit and panoramic spectroscopy at the 6-m telescope of the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences and by mapping emission lines in a narrow passband of 13 Å with the MaNGaL instrument at the 2.5-m telescope of the Caucasus Mountain Observatory of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute of the Lomonosov Moscow State University, we have investigated the gaseous component of the giant lenticular galaxy NGC 934. The gas kinematics in the galaxy has turned out to disagree completely with the stellar kinematics, suggesting recent accretion of a large amount of cold gas by the galaxy. Weak star formation proceeds in the accreted gas on the periphery of the galaxy, mainly in a ring of radius 26 kpc, which may promise the buildup of a giant low-surface-brightness stellar disk in this early-type galaxy. The gas metallicity in the star formation ring is nearly solar: the accretion source is most likely the swallowing of a massive gas-rich satellite.