Unveiling the nature and fate of the almost-dark cloud AGC 226178 through H I mapping
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Context. The origin of extragalactic, almost dark H I clouds with extreme gas-to-stellar mass ratios remains poorly understood. Aims. We investigated the nature and fate of the almost dark cloud AGC 226178, projected within the Virgo cluster, which exhibits an H I -to-stellar mass ratio of approximately 1000. Methods. We present deep single-dish H I mapping from the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), complemented by high-resolution interferometric data from the Very Large Array (VLA), as part of the Atomic gas in Virgo Interacting Dwarf galaxies (AVID) project. Together, these observations provide the highest-quality H I analysis to date of an almost dark cloud, in terms of the combination of spatial resolution and sensitivity. Results. The FAST data reveal a short low-velocity tail extending towards the dwarf galaxy VCC 2034, which was previously proposed as a possible origin for AGC 226178. However, VCC 2034 itself exhibits a line-of-sight asymmetric H I feature and a cometary morphology that indicates a stripping event unrelated to AGC 226178. VLA observations reveal a velocity gradient across AGC 226178, along with a clumpy internal structure. The velocity dispersion within the cloud exceeds the thermal line width, indicating the presence of turbulence and/or unresolved random motions. The whole cloud cannot be gravitationally bound by the observed atomic gas alone. The resolved H I clumps follow the standard H I mass–star formation rate relation and a tight mass–size relation: those associated with star formation reach surface densities above the theoretical threshold for self-shielding. Conclusions. We conclude that AGC 226178 is a free-floating H I cloud of unknown origin. The system appears to be in the process of disintegration. It is likely located well outside the Virgo cluster, as the preservation of its extended H I morphology within the cluster environment would otherwise require a substantial reservoir of unseen molecular gas with a mass exceeding that of the observed H I content. While confinement pressure from the hot intracluster medium may contribute to its stability, it is unlikely to be the dominant factor preventing its disruption.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".