High-resolution H I observations of the Western Magellanic Bridge

Müller, Erik; Staveley‐Smith, L.; Zealey, W. J.; Stanimirović, Snežana

doi:10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06147.x

Cited by 58 publications

(99 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…We have presented the stellar content and distribution of a transversal strip perpendicular to the main H I ridge of the 'Inter-Cloud' Muller et al (2003) maps and the y-axis is the sum of the stellar density map multiplied by the gas density at that velocity. If the gas follows stars then the highest correlation between the maps occurs at ∼180 km s −1 , while there are two other velocity peaks at ∼193 and ∼225 km s −1 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The MAGellanic Inter-Cloud (MAGIC) project – II. Slicing up the Bridge

Noël¹,

Conn²,

Read³

et al. 2015

Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.

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The origin of the gas in between the Magellanic Clouds (MCs), known as the Magellanic Bridge, has always been the subject of controversy. To shed light into this, we present the results from the MAGellanic Inter-Cloud II (MAGIC II) project aimed at probing the stellar populations in 10 large fields located perpendicular to the main ridge-line of H I in the Inter-Cloud region. We secured these observations of the stellar populations in between the MCs using the WFI (Wide Field Imager) camera on the 2.2 m telescope in La Silla. Using colour-magnitude diagrams, we trace stellar populations across the Inter-Cloud region. In good agreement with MAGIC I, we find significant intermediate-age stars in the Inter-Cloud region as well as young stars of a similar age to the last pericentre passage in between the MCs (∼200 Myr ago). We show here that the young, intermediate-age and old stars have distinct spatial distributions. The young stars correlate well with the H I gas suggesting that they were either recently stripped from the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) or formed in situ. The bulk of intermediate-age stars are located mainly in the Bridge region where the H I column density is higher, but they are more spread out than the young stars. They have very similar properties to stars located ∼2 kpc from the SMC centre, suggesting that they were tidally stripped from this region. Finally, the old stars extend to some 8 kpc from the SMC supporting the idea that all galaxies have a large extended metal-poor stellar halo.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The MAGellanic Inter-Cloud (MAGIC) project – II. Slicing up the Bridge

Noël¹,

Conn²,

Read³

et al. 2015

Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.

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“…Irwin 1991;Bica et al 2008) and H I gas (e.g. StaveleySmith et al 2003;Hatzidimitriou et al 2005;Muller et al 2003), the Bridge and two fields at specific locations in the Stream.…”

Section: Vmc Area Coveragementioning

confidence: 99%

The VMC survey

Cioni

Clementini

Girardi

et al. 2011

A&A

323

304

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Context. The new VISual and Infrared Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) has started operations. Over its first five years it will be collecting data for six public surveys, one of which is the near-infrared Y JK s VISTA survey of the Magellanic Clouds system (VMC). This survey comprises the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the Small Magellanic Cloud, the Magellanic Bridge connecting the two galaxies and two fields in the Magellanic Stream. Aims. This paper provides an overview of the VMC survey strategy and presents first science results. The main goals of the VMC survey are the determination of the spatially-resolved star-formation history and the three-dimensional structure of the Magellanic system. The VMC survey is therefore designed to reach stars as faint as the oldest main sequence turn-off point and to constrain the mean magnitude of pulsating variables such as RR Lyrae stars and Cepheids. This paper focuses on observations of VMC fields in the LMC obtained between November 2009 and March 2010. These observations correspond to a completeness of 7% of the planned LMC fields. Methods. The VMC data are comprised of multi-epoch observations which are executed following specific time constraints. The data were reduced using the VISTA Data Flow System pipeline with source catalogues, including astrometric and photometric corrections, produced and made available via the VISTA Science Archive. The VMC data will be released to the astronomical community following the European Southern Observatory's Public Survey policy. The analysis of the data shows that the sensitivity in each wave band agrees with expectations. Uncertainties and completeness of the data are also derived. Results. The first science results, aimed at assessing the scientific quality of the VMC data, include an overview of the distribution of stars in colour-magnitude and colour-colour diagrams, the detection of planetary nebulae and stellar clusters, and the K s band light-curves of variable stars. Conclusions. The VMC survey represents a tremendous improvement, in spatial resolution and sensitivity, on previous panoramic observations of the Magellanic system in the near-infrared, providing a powerful complement to deep observations at other wavelengths.

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“…One of the most striking features of the Magellanic system is the vast extent of its H i componentincluding the 200 • long Magellanic Stream (MS) and Leading Arm (Nidever et al 2010) as well as the Magellanic Bridge (Muller et al 2003). These gaseous structures are the result of past interactions of the Magellanic Clouds (MCs) with each other and the MW galaxy (Murai & Fujimoto 1980;Gardiner & Noguchi 1996;Connors et al 2006;Růžička et al 2010;Diaz & Bekki 2012;Besla et al 2010Besla et al , 2012Besla et al , 2013.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Tidally Stripped Stellar Component of the Magellanic Bridge

Nidever

Monachesi

Bell

et al. 2013

ApJ

111

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Deep photometry of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) stellar periphery (R = 4 • , 4.2 kpc) is used to study its line-of-sight depth with red clump (RC) stars. The RC luminosity function is affected little by young ( 1 Gyr) blue-loop stars in these regions because their main-sequence counterparts are not observed in the color-magnitude diagrams. The SMCs eastern side is found to have a large line-of-sight depth (∼23 kpc) while the western side has a much shallower depth (∼10 kpc), consistent with previous photographic plate photometry results. We use a model SMC RC luminosity function to deconvolve the observed RC magnitudes and construct the density function in distance for our fields. Three of the eastern fields show a distance bimodality with one component at the "systemic" ∼67 kpc SMC distance and a second component at ∼55 kpc. Our data are not reproduced well by the various extant Magellanic Cloud and Stream simulations. However, the models predict that the known H i Magellanic Bridge (stretching from the SMC eastward toward the Large Magellanic Cloud, LMC) has a decreasing distance with angle from the SMC and should be seen in both the gaseous and stellar components. From comparison with these models, we conclude that the most likely explanation for our newly identified ∼55 kpc stellar structure in the eastern SMC is a stellar counterpart of the H i Magellanic Bridge that was tidally stripped from the SMC ∼200 Myr ago during a close encounter with the LMC. This discovery has important implications for microlensing surveys of the SMC.

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High-resolution H I observations of the Western Magellanic Bridge

Cited by 58 publications

References 42 publications

The MAGellanic Inter-Cloud (MAGIC) project – II. Slicing up the Bridge

The MAGellanic Inter-Cloud (MAGIC) project – II. Slicing up the Bridge

The VMC survey

A Tidally Stripped Stellar Component of the Magellanic Bridge

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