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The VMC Survey - XXXIV. Morphology of Stellar Populations in the Magellanic Clouds
- Source :
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Publication Year :
- 2019
-
Abstract
- The Magellanic Clouds are nearby dwarf irregular galaxies whose morphologies show different properties when traced by different stellar populations, making them an important laboratory for studying galaxy morphologies. We study the morphology of the Magellanic Clouds using data from the VISTA survey of the Magellanic Clouds system (VMC). We used about $10$ and $2.5$ million sources across an area of $\sim105$ deg$^2$ and $\sim42$ deg$^2$ towards the Large and Small Magellanic Cloud (LMC and SMC), respectively. We estimated median ages of stellar populations occupying different regions of the near-infrared ($J-K_\mathrm{s}, K_\mathrm{s}$) colour-magnitude diagram. Morphological maps were produced and detailed features in the central regions were characterised for the first time with bins corresponding to a spatial resolution of $0.13$ kpc (LMC) and $0.16$ kpc (SMC). In the LMC, we find that main sequence stars show coherent structures that grow with age and trace the multiple spiral arms of the galaxy, star forming regions become dimmer as we progress in age, while supergiant stars are centrally concentrated. Intermediate-age stars, despite tracing a regular and symmetrical morphology, show central clumps and hints of spiral arms. In the SMC, young main sequence stars depict a broken bar. Intermediate-age populations show signatures of elongation towards the Magellanic Bridge that can be attributed to the LMC-SMC interaction $\sim200$ Myr ago. They also show irregular central features suggesting that the inner SMC has also been influenced by tidal interactions.<br />Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 20 pages, 12 figures and 2 tables
- Subjects :
- Physics
Spiral galaxy
Morphology (linguistics)
010308 nuclear & particles physics
FOS: Physical sciences
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
01 natural sciences
Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
Galaxy
Stars
Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Space and Planetary Science
Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
0103 physical sciences
Astrophysics::Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Small Magellanic Cloud
Supergiant
Irregular galaxy
010303 astronomy & astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
Main sequence
Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics
QB799
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 00358711
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....1973925e9e1ebf9651b43d3f8f1bbe45
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz2400