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Title: A stellar overdensity associated with the Small Magellanic Cloud

Journal Article · · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stx507· OSTI ID:1362063
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  1. Univ. Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre (Brazil); Lab. Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia - LIneA, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
  2. Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
  3. Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, Tucson, AZ (United States)
  4. Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD (United States)
  5. Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States)
  6. Univ. de Strasbourg, Strasbourg (France); Max-Planck-Institut fur Astronomie, Heidelberg (Germany)
  7. Univ. of Cambridge, Cambridge (United Kingdom)
  8. Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, Canary Islands (Spain); Univ. of La Laguna, Canary Islands (Spain)
  9. Zentrum fur Astronomie der Univ. Heidelberg, Heidelberg (Germany)
  10. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States)
  11. Univ. of Surrey, Guildford (United Kingdom)
  12. Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA (United States)
  13. Univ. of Hertfordshire, Hatfield (United Kingdom); Leibnitz-Institut fur Astrophysik Potsdam, Potsdam (Germany)
  14. ETH Zurich, Zurich (Switzerland)
  15. Mount Stromlo Observatory, Weston Creek, ACT (Australia)
  16. Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, La Serena (Chile)
  17. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
  18. National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Tucson, AZ (United States)
  19. Lab. Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia - LIneA, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); Observatorio Nacional, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
  20. Lab. Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia - LIneA, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
  21. Rhodes Univ., Grahamstown (South Africa); Univ. College London, London (United Kingdom)
  22. Univ. College London, London (United Kingdom); Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, Paris (France); Sorbonne Univ., Paris (France)
  23. Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, IL (United States); National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Urbana, IL (United States)
  24. Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai, Barcelona (Spain); Univ. Autonoma de Madrid, Madrid (Spain)
  25. Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States)
  26. Univ. of Portsmouth, Portsmouth (United Kingdom); Univ. of Southampton, Southampton (United Kingdom)
  27. IIT Hyderabad, Telangana (India)
  28. Univ. College London, London (United Kingdom)
  29. Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai, Barcelona (Spain)
  30. Univ. Autonoma de Madrid, Madrid (Spain)
  31. Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States); SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
  32. The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States)
  33. Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, La Serena (Chile); Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
  34. Australian Astronomical Observatory, North Ryde, NSW (Australia)
  35. Institucio Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats, Barcelona (Spain); The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Bellaterra (Barcelona) (Spain)
  36. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
  37. Univ. of Sussex, Brighton (United Kingdom)
  38. Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (United States)
  39. Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas Medioambientales y Tecnologicas (CIEMAT), Madrid (Spain)
  40. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
  41. Lab. Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia - LIneA, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); Univ. Federal do ABC, Santo Andre (Brazil)
  42. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  43. National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Urbana, IL (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Here, we report the discovery of a stellar overdensity 8° north of the centre of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC; Small Magellanic Cloud Northern Over-Density; SMCNOD), using data from the first 2 yr of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and the first year of the MAGellanic SatelLITEs Survey (MagLiteS). The SMCNOD is indistinguishable in age, metallicity and distance from the nearby SMC stars, being primarily composed of intermediate-age stars (6 Gyr, Z = 0.001), with a small fraction of young stars (1 Gyr, Z = 0.01). The SMCNOD has an elongated shape with an ellipticity of 0.6 and a size of ~6° × 2°. It has an absolute magnitude of MV ≅ –7.7, rh = 2.1 kpc, and μV(r < rh) = 31.2 mag arcsec–2. We estimate a stellar mass of ~105 M⊙, following a Kroupa mass function. The SMCNOD was probably removed from the SMC disc by tidal stripping, since it is located near the head of the Magellanic Stream, and the literature indicates likely recent Large Magellanic Cloud-SMC encounters. This scenario is supported by the lack of significant H i gas. Other potential scenarios for the SMCNOD origin are a transient overdensity within the SMC tidal radius or a primordial SMC satellite in advanced stage of disruption.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Contributing Organization:
DES; DES Collaboration
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-07CH11359; AC05-00OR22725; AC02-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
1362063
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1352816; OSTI ID: 1367848
Report Number(s):
arXiv:1612.03938; FERMILAB-PUB-16-689-AE-CD; 1602907
Journal Information:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 468, Issue 2; ISSN 0035-8711
Publisher:
Royal Astronomical SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 33 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (18)

Photometric study of the SMCNOD using variable stars from the OGLE-IV survey journal July 2018
ΛCDM predictions for the satellite population of M33 journal July 2018
A catalogue of structural and morphological measurements for DES Y1 journal July 2018
Stellar streams around the Magellanic Clouds in 4D journal December 2018
The VISCACHA survey – I. Overview and first results journal February 2019
Clouds in arms journal September 2018
SMASH: Survey of the MAgellanic Stellar History journal October 2017
Identification of RR Lyrae Stars in Multiband, Sparsely Sampled Data from the Dark Energy Survey Using Template Fitting and Random Forest Classification journal June 2019
An Updated Small Magellanic Cloud and Magellanic Bridge Catalog of Star Clusters, Associations, and Related Objects journal February 2020
On the Nature of Ultra-faint Dwarf Galaxy Candidates. I. DES1, Eridanus III, and Tucana V journal January 2018
Stellar Streams Discovered in the Dark Energy Survey journal July 2018
Substructures and Tidal Distortions in the Magellanic Stellar Periphery journal May 2018
On the nature of ultra-faint dwarf galaxy candidates I: DES1, Eridanus III and Tucana V text January 2017
Substructures and tidal distortions in the Magellanic stellar periphery text January 2018
A catalogue of structural and morphological measurements for DES Y1 text January 2018
Clouds in Arms text January 2018
Stellar streams around the Magellanic Clouds in 4D text January 2018
Identification of RR Lyrae stars in multiband, sparsely-sampled data from the Dark Energy Survey using template fitting and Random Forest classification text January 2019

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Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
galaxies: interactions
Magellanic Clouds
Galaxies
Magellanic clouds