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CMD for a region of 4000 ×4000 pixels extracted from the 8 8 LMC deep tile. Objects with J − K s > 1 and fainter than K s = 16 mag are background galaxies.
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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 these is the near-infrared YJKsVISTA survey of the Magellanic
Clouds system (VMC). This survey comprises the LMC, the SMC, the Bridge
connecting the two galaxies and two fields in th...
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Citations
... Recently, Wan et al. (2020;hereafter, W20) used the all-sky data release of SkyMapper (DR1) to investigate the kinematics of the LMC across various stellar populations, including carbon stars, RGB stars, and young stars. Also, the kinematics of central regions of the LMC has been studied by Niederhofer et al. (2022;hereafter, N22) using the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) survey of the Magellanic Clouds system (VMC; Cioni et al. 2011). Recent studies with Gaia Early Data Release 3 (EDR3) and DR3 revealed the structure and velocity maps of the LMC (Gaia Collaboration et al. 2021;hereafter, G21;Jiménez-Arranz et al. 2023;hereafter, J23). ...
The internal kinematics of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) disk have been modeled by several studies using different tracers with varying coverage, resulting in a range of parameters. Here, we model the LMC disk using 1705 star clusters and field stars, based on a robust Markov Chain Monte Carlo method, using Gaia DR3 data. The dependency of the model parameters on the age, coverage, and strength of the clusters are also presented. This is the first comprehensive 2D kinematic study using star clusters. Red clump (RC) stars and young main-sequence stars are also modeled for comparison. The clusters and field stars are found to have distinctly different kinematic centers, disk inclination, position angle of the line of nodes, and scale radius. We also note a significant radial variation of the disk parameters. Clusters and young stars are found to have a large residual proper motion and a relatively large velocity dispersion when compared to the RC field population, which could be due to perturbation from the bar and spiral arms. We trace the presence of the large residual proper motion and noncircular motion among clusters likely to be due to the bar and detect a decrease in the scale radius as a result of the possible evolution of the bar. The kinematically deviant clusters point to a spatiotemporal disturbance in the LMC disk, matching with the expected impact factor and time of the recent collision between the LMC and the Small Magellanic Cloud.
... Near-infrared K-band data is essential to our goal of improving the calibration of the SB-C relation. For that reason, in the analysis of BLMC-03, we used 14 measurements from the VISTA Magellanic Clouds IR photometric survey (VMC; Cioni et al. 2011) together with 12 observations that we collected using the SOFI imaging camera on the 3.58 m ESO New Technology Telescope (NTT; Moorwood et al. 1998) at the La Silla Observatory, Chile. The latter were obtained using the Large Field setup with a field of view of 4 9 × 4 9 at a scale of 0 288 pixel −1 . ...
We present the results from a complex study of an eclipsing O-type binary (Aa+Ab) with the orbital period of P A = 3.2254367 days that forms part of a higher-order multiple system in a configuration of (A+B)+C. We derived masses of the Aa+Ab binary of M 1 = 19.02 ± 0.12 and M 2 = 17.50 ± 0.13 M ⊙ , the radii of R 1 = 7.70 ± 0.05 and R 2 = 6.64 ± 0.06 R ⊙ , and temperatures of T 1 = 34,250 ± 500 K and T 2 = 33,750 ± 500 K. From the analysis of the radial velocities, we found a spectroscopic orbit of A in the outer A+B system with P A+B = 195.8 days ( P A+B / P A ≈ 61). In the O − C analysis, we confirmed this orbit and found another component orbiting the A+B system with P AB+C = 2550 days ( P AB+C / P A+B ≈ 13). From the total mass of the inner binary and its outer orbit, we estimated the mass of the third object, M B ≳ 10.7 M ⊙ . From the light travel time effect fit to the O − C data, we obtained the limit for the mass of the fourth component, M C ≳ 7.3 M ⊙ . These extra components contribute about 20%–30% (increasing with wavelength) to the total system light. From the comparison of model spectra with the multiband photometry, we derived a distance modulus of 18.59 ± 0.06 mag, a reddening of 0.16 ± 0.02 mag, and an R V of 3.2. This work is part of our ongoing project, which aims to calibrate the surface brightness–color relation for early-type stars.
... Z e ; e.g., Russell & Dopita 1992;Choudhury et al. 2018) make it an ideal target for studying the evolution of both the interstellar medium and stars with well-characterized distances in a more primitive chemical environment than the Milky Way. Consequently, the SMC has been targeted by many surveys covering a wide wavelength range, from X-rays to radio (e.g., Zaritsky et al. 2002;Cutri & 2MASS Team 2004;Kato et al. 2007;Udalski et al. 2008;Ita et al. 2010;Cioni et al. 2011;Gordon et al. 2011;Haberl et al. 2012;Meixner et al. 2013;Joseph et al. 2019). ...
We present point-source photometry from the Spitzer Space Telescope's final survey of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). We mapped nearly 30 deg ² in two epochs in 2017, with the second extending to early 2018 at 3.6 and 4.5 μ m using the Infrared Array Camera. This survey duplicates the footprint from the SAGE-SMC program in 2008. Together, these surveys cover a nearly 10 yr temporal baseline in the SMC. We performed aperture photometry on the mosaicked maps produced from the new data. We did not use any prior catalogs as inputs for the extractor in order to be sensitive to any moving objects (e.g., foreground brown dwarfs) and other transient phenomena (e.g., cataclysmic variables or FU Ori–type eruptions). We produced a point-source catalog with high-confidence sources for each epoch as well as a combined-epoch catalog. For each epoch and the combined-epoch data, we also produced a more complete archive with lower-confidence sources. All of these data products will be made available to the community at the Infrared Science Archive.
... To place the stars into the Hertzprung-Russell diagram (HRD), we derived bolometric luminosity on the basis of optical UBV from Selman et al. ( 1999 ) and near-infrared JK s photometry from 2 Micron All Sky Survey and Vista Magellanic Clouds survey (Cioni et al. 2011 ) using the methodology of Bestenlehner et al. ( 2020Bestenlehner et al. ( , 2022. The HRD (Fig. 9 ) shows that most stars are populated near and to MNRAS 528, 6735-6750 (2024) the cool side of the zero-age main sequence (ZAMS). ...
Upcoming large-scale spectroscopic surveys with e.g. WEAVE (William herschel telescope Enhanced Area Velocity Explorer) and 4MOST (4-metre Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope) will provide thousands of spectra of massive stars, which need to be analysed in an efficient and homogeneous way. Usually, studies of massive stars are limited to samples of a few hundred objects, which pushes current spectroscopic analysis tools to their limits because visual inspection is necessary to verify the spectroscopic fit. Often uncertainties are only estimated rather than derived and prior information cannot be incorporated without a Bayesian approach. In addition, uncertainties of stellar atmospheres and radiative transfer codes are not considered as a result of simplified, inaccurate, or incomplete/missing physics or, in short, idealized physical models. Here, we address the question of ‘How to compare an idealized model of complex objects to real data?’ with an empirical Bayesian approach and maximum a posteriori approximations. We focus on application to large-scale optical spectroscopic studies of complex astrophysical objects like stars. More specifically, we test and verify our methodology on samples of OB stars in 30 Doradus region of the Large Magellanic Clouds using a grid of fastwind model atmospheres. Our spectroscopic model de-idealization analysis pipeline takes advantage of the statistics that large samples provide by determining the model error to account for the idealized stellar atmosphere models, which are included into the error budget. The pipeline performs well over a wide parameter space and derives robust stellar parameters with representative uncertainties.
... The infrared (IR) photometry is essential as it reveals information about the circumstellar dust, while the optical data provide atmospheric parameters of the star. We crossmatched the RSG sample with various photometric data, including Skymapper (u, v, g, i, r, and z bands;Keller et al. 2007;Bessell et al. 2011;Wolf et al. 2018), Gaia EDR3 (G BP , G, and G RP bands; Gaia Collaboration et al. 2021), Magellanic Clouds Photometric Survey (MCPS; U, B, V, and I bands; Zaritsky et al. 2004), Vista Magellanic Cloud Survey (VMC; Y, J, and K S bands; Cioni et al. 2011), InfraRed Survey Facility (IRSF; J, H, and K S bands; Kato et al. 2007), The Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS; J, H, and K S band; Skrutskie et al. 2006), AKARI (N3, S7, S11, L15, and L24 bands; Murakami et al. 2007;Onaka et al. 2007;Kato et al. 2012 Werner et al. 2004), as shown in Table 1. A search radius of 1″ was used in the crossmatching. ...
Mass loss is a crucial process that affects the observational properties, evolution path, and fate of highly evolved stars. However, the mechanism of mass loss is still unclear, and the mass-loss rate (MLR) of red supergiant stars (RSGs) requires further research and precise evaluation. To address this, we utilized an updated and complete sample of RSGs in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and employed the 2-DUST radiation transfer model and spectral energy distribution fitting approach to determine the dust-production rates (DPRs) and dust properties of the RSGs. We have fitted 4714 selected RSGs with over 100,000 theoretical templates of evolved stars. Our results show that the DPR range of RSGs in the LMC is 10 ⁻¹¹ M ⊙ yr ⁻¹ –10 ⁻⁷ M ⊙ yr ⁻¹ , and the total DPR of all RSGs is 1.14 ×10 ⁻⁶ M ⊙ yr ⁻¹ . We find that 63.3% RSGs are oxygen-rich, and they account for 97.2% of the total DPR. The optically thin RSG, which comprise 30.6% of our sample, contribute only 0.1% of the total DPR, while carbon-rich RSGs (6.1%) produce 2.7% of the total DPR. Overall, 208 RSGs contributed 76.6% of the total DPR. We have established a new relationship between the MLR and luminosity of RSGs in the LMC, which exhibits a positive trend and a clear turning point at log L / L ⊙ ≈ 4.4 .
... For this reason, the outskirts of the MCs have been a subject of intense scrutiny over the last decade. Deep photometric surv e ys, such as the Dark Energy Surv e y (Dark Energy Surv e y Collaboration 2016 ), Gaia (Gaia Collaboration 2016 ), SMASH (Surv e y of the MAgellanic Stellar History; Nidever et al. 2017Nidever et al. , 2020, or VMC (VISual and Infrared Telescope for Astronomy surv e y of the Magallanic Clouds; Cioni et al. 2011 ), have enabled the discovery of many different stellar structures around the MCs (Belokurov & Erkal 2019 ;El Youssoufi et al. 2021 ;Gaia Collaboration 2021 ).These features are able to yield MNRAS 527, 8706-8717 (2024) crucial information on the timing of the interactions. So far, most of the studies for these features have focused on modelling their morphology and kinematic information on a limited number of stars (Cullinane et al. 2020 ;Cheng et al. 2022 ). ...
In this paper, we analyse the metallicity structure of the Magellanic Clouds using parameters derived from the Gaia Data Release 3 (DR3) low-resolution XP (for Blue/Red Photometer) spectra, astrometry, and photometry. We find that the qualitative behaviour of the radial metallicity gradients in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is quite similar, with both of them having a metallicity plateau at intermediate radii and a second at larger radii. The LMC has a first metallicity plateau at [M/H] ≈ −0.8 for 3–7°, while the SMC has one at [M/H] ≈ −1.1 for 3–5°. The outer LMC periphery has a fairly constant metallicity of [M/H] ≈ −1.0 (10–18°), while the outer SMC periphery has a value of [M/H] ≈ −1.3 (6–10°). The sharp drop in metallicity in the LMC at ∼8° and the marked difference in age distributions in these two regions suggest that there were two important evolutionary phases in the LMC. In addition, we find that the Magellanic periphery substructures, likely Magellanic debris, are mostly dominated by LMC material stripped off in old interactions with the SMC. This presents a new picture in contrast with the popular belief that the debris around the clouds had been mostly stripped off from the SMC due to having a lower mass. We perform a detailed analysis for each known substructure and identify its potential origin based on metallicities and motions with respect to each galaxy.
... 1. The JHK S data from the Infrared Survey Facility (IRSF) Magellanic Clouds Point Source Survey (Kato et al. 2007); we treat the J-band flux density as an upper limit for the SED fitting since no source is visible in the image at the position of 1 A. The VISTA survey of the Magellanic Clouds system (VMC, YJK S bands; Cioni et al. 2011) only provides the K s -band photometry, and it is consistent with the IRSF measurement. 2. The Spitzer Space Telescope Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) 3.6-8.0 ...
We report the first extragalactic detection of the higher-order millimeter hydrogen recombination lines (Δ n > 2). The γ -, ϵ -, and η -transitions have been detected toward the millimeter continuum source N 105–1 A in the star-forming region N 105 in the Large Magellanic Cloud with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. We use the H40 α line, the brightest of the detected recombination lines (H40 α , H36 β , H50 β , H41 γ , H57 γ , H49 ϵ , H53 η , and H54 η ), to determine the electron temperature and study ionized gas kinematics in the region, and the 3 mm free–free continuum emission to determine the physical parameters: the size, emission measure, and electron density. We compare the physical properties of N 105–1 A to a large sample of Galactic compact and ultracompact (UC) H ii regions and conclude that N 105–1 A is similar to the most luminous ( L > 10 ⁵ L ⊙ ) UC H ii regions in the Galaxy. N 105–1 A is ionized by an O5.5 V star; it is deeply embedded in its natal molecular clump, and likely associated with a (proto)cluster. We incorporate high-resolution molecular line data including CS, SO, SO 2 , and CH 3 OH (∼0.12 pc), and HCO ⁺ and CO (∼0.087 pc) to explore the molecular environment of N 105–1 A. Based on the CO data, we find evidence for a cloud–cloud collision that likely triggered star formation in the region. We find no clear outflow signatures, but the presence of filaments and streamers indicates ongoing accretion onto the clump hosting the UC H ii region. Sulfur chemistry in N 105–1 A is consistent with the accretion shock model predictions.
... ent authors when dealing with the SMC metallicity gradient. For instance,Choudhury et al. (2020, see also Choudhury et al. (2018) employed near-infrared photometry from the VISTA Survey of the Magellanic Clouds (VMC,Cioni et al. 2011) to map metallicity trends in the SMC using the elliptical framework of ...
The spatial metallicity distribution of star clusters in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) has recently been found to correlate as a V-shaped function with the semi-major axis of an elliptical framework proposed to assume a projected galaxy flattening. We report results on the impact that the use of such a framework can produce on our understanding of the SMC formation and its chemical enrichment. We show that clusters with similar semi-major axes are placed at a very different distances from the SMC centre. The recently claimed bimodal metallicity distribution of clusters projected on the innermost SMC regions and the V-shaped metallicity gradient fade away when actual distances are used. Although a large dispersion prevails, clusters older than $\sim$ 1 Gyr exhibit a shallow metallicity gradient, caused by slightly different spatial distributions of clusters younger and older than $\sim$ 4 Gyr; the former being more centrally concentrated and having a mean metallicity ([Fe/H]) $\sim$ 0.15 dex more metal-rich than that of older clusters. This metallicity gradient does not show any dependence with the position angle, except for clusters placed beyond 11 kpc, which are located in the eastern side of the galaxy.
... Recent large-scale digital sky surveys have revolutionized our understanding of the Magellanic Clouds (MCs) and their environments. In particular, sensitive surveys with the VISual and Infrared Telescope for Astronomy, (e.g., VMC; Cioni et al. 2011), the VLT Survey Telescope (e.g., STEP and YMCA; Ripepi et al. 2014;Gatto et al. 2021), and the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the 4 m Blanco Telescope (e.g., DES, SMASH, and MagLiteS;DES Collaboration 2005;Bechtol 2017;Nidever et al. 2017) have provided an unprecedentedly deep view of the diverse stellar populations of the MCs, enabling detailed characterization of their star formation histories (e.g., Rubele et al. 2015Rubele et al. , 2018Mazzi et al. 2021; Massana et al. 2022), 3D geometries (e.g., Ripepi et al. 2017Ripepi et al. , 2022Choi et al. 2018a), and substructures (e.g., Choi et al. 2018b;Mackey et al. 2018;Massana et al. 2020;El Youssoufi et al. 2021;Cullinane et al. 2022;Gatto et al. 2022a). Furthermore, these surveys have significantly expanded the census of star clusters and satellite galaxies in the main bodies and outskirts of the Clouds (e.g., Bechtol et al. 2015;Koposov et al. 2015Koposov et al. , 2018Drlica-Wagner et al. 2016;Martin et al. 2016;Torrealba et al. 2018;Cerny et al. 2021a;Gatto et al. 2021), allowing for constraints on the MCs' masses, dark matter halos, orbits, and interaction histories (e.g., Jethwa et al. 2016;Bitsakis et al. 2018;Kallivayalil et al. 2018;Erkal & Belokurov 2020;Patel et al. 2020;Dias et al. 2021), especially when paired with the precise phase-space information provided by the Gaia satellite (Gaia Collaboration et al. 2016;Battaglia et al. 2022;Pace et al. 2022). ...
We present the discovery of DELVE 6, an ultra-faint stellar system identified in the second data release of the DECam Local Volume Exploration (DELVE) survey. Based on a maximum-likelihood fit to its structure and stellar population, we find that DELVE 6 is an old ( τ > 9.8 Gyr at 95% confidence) and metal-poor ([Fe/H] < −1.17 dex at 95% confidence) stellar system with an absolute magnitude of M V = − 1.5 − 0.6 + 0.4 mag and an azimuthally averaged half-light radius of r 1 / 2 = 10 − 3 + 4 pc. These properties are consistent with the population of ultra-faint star clusters uncovered by recent surveys. Interestingly, DELVE 6 is located at an angular separation of ∼10° from the center of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), corresponding to a 3D physical separation of ∼20 kpc given the system’s observed distance ( D ⊙ = 80 kpc). This also places the system ∼35 kpc from the center of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), lying within recent constraints on the size of the LMC’s dark matter halo. We tentatively measure the proper motion of DELVE 6 using data from Gaia, which we find supports a potential association between the system and the LMC/SMC. Although future kinematic measurements will be necessary to determine its origins, we highlight that DELVE 6 may represent only the second or third ancient ( τ > 9 Gyr) star cluster associated with the SMC, or one of fewer than two dozen ancient clusters associated with the LMC. Nonetheless, we cannot currently rule out the possibility that the system is a distant Milky Way halo star cluster.
... The ϖ GEDR3 − ϖ HST difference corresponds to an absolute magnitude and zero-point shift of 0.1 mag. Muraveva et al. (2015) established RRL PLZ relations for the LMC in the VISTA K s band 8 using VMC photometry of 70 stars from Cioni et al. (2011). They tied their calibrations to two different anchors. ...
We present new period–luminosity and period–luminosity–metallicity relations for Galactic RR Lyrae stars based on a sample of 28 pulsators located at distances of up to 1.5 kpc from the Sun. Near-infrared photometry was obtained at the Cerro Armazones Observatory, and parallaxes were taken from the Gaia Early Data Release 3. Relations were determined for the 2MASS JHK s bands and the W JK Wesenheit index. We compare our results with other calibrations available in the literature and obtain very good agreement with the photometry of RR Lyraes from the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) anchored using the distance to the Cloud, which is based on detached eclipsing binaries. We find that the dependence of absolute magnitudes on metallicity of 0.070 ± 0.042 ( J band) to 0.087 ± 0.031 ( W JK index) mag dex ⁻¹ for the population of fundamental pulsators (RRab) is in agreement with previously published phenomenological works. We perform a refined determination of distance to the LMC based on our new calibration and photometry from Szewczyk et al. We study the dependence of the fitted parameters of the fiducial relations and the LMC distance on the systematic parallax offset.
