Integral field spectroscopy of H-alpha emission in cooling flow cluster cores: disturbing the molecular gas reservoir

We present optical integral field spectroscopy of the H-alpha-luminous (>1E42 erg/s) central cluster galaxies in the cores of the cooling flows A1664, A1835, A2204 and Zw8193. From the [NII]+H-alpha complex we derive 2-D views of the distribution and kinematics of the emission line gas, and further diagnostics from the [SII] and [OI] lines. The H-alpha emission shows a variety of disturbed morphologies with velocity gradients and splittings of several hundred km/s on scales of 20 kpc or more. Despite the small sample size, there are some generic features. The most disturbed H-alpha emission appears to be associated with secondary galaxies within 10-20 kpc (projected) of the central galaxy and close in velocity to the H-alpha. The global H-alpha kinematics match those of CO(1-0) emission in single-dish data. The [NII]/H-alpha, [SII]/H-alpha and [OI]/H-alpha ratios vary little with position, local H-alpha surface brightness or between clusters. We propose that the H-alpha and CO emission arise in molecular clouds heated by a starburst which has been triggered by interaction with a secondary galaxy. Such CO emission is known to trace massive (>1E10 M_sun) compact (<20 kpc) reservoirs of cool molecular gas, which an infalling galaxy may disturb, distorting the H-alpha morphology and initiating widespread star formation. We suggest that cloud-cloud collisions in the undisturbed molecular gas reservoir might be an important excitation source for the emission line gas in the cores of lower H-alpha luminosity cluster cores with less intense star formation (abridged).