A RELHIC twin candidate near the galaxy M51

arXiv:2607.21034 · astro-ph.GA · Submitted 2026-07-23 · Read on arXiv

Qingze Chen, Jie Wang, Yingjie Jing, Chen Xu, Tiantian Liang, Zerui Liu, Zhipeng Hou, Yiwei Xu, Cheng Cheng, Wei Du

astro-ph.GA

Submitted: 2026-07-23

Comments: 8 figures, 1 table, 8 pages; accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

The gist: We report the discovery of a pair of H I clouds near M51 (NGC 5194) using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST).

Terminology

Abstract

We report the discovery of a pair of H I clouds near M51 (NGC 5194) using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). These clouds have no optical counterparts and are potential candidates for Reionization-Limited H I Clouds (RELHICs). We search for compact H I sources in deep FEASTS observations using SoFiA and remove objects with optical counterparts through cross-matching with the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys. The remaining candidates are modelled as hydrostatic H I structures embedded in Navarro-Frenk-White dark matter haloes and compared with RELHIC predictions and TNG50 simulations. We identify two H I clouds, Cloud S and Cloud N, at projected distances of 70--90 kpc from M51. Each cloud has an H I mass of approximately 10 6.5 solar masses, a velocity dispersion of about 20 km/s, and no detectable optical counterpart down to a g-band surface brightness limit of approximately 27.5 mag arcsec-2. Their stellar luminosities are constrained to be below 10 5 solar luminosities. Their H I properties are consistent with RELHIC predictions, corresponding to host halo masses of 3.7 +- 0.4 * 10 9 solar masses. Cloud S and Cloud N are promising but not definitive RELHIC candidates. A tidal origin remains possible in the interacting M51 system, especially because the clouds are unresolved by FAST and Cloud N may show a velocity gradient. Future high-resolution interferometric observations will be crucial for distinguishing between starless dark matter haloes and tidal debris.

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