OB stars in the Leading Arm of the Magellanic Stream

Abstract

We present our spectroscopic program aimed to study some new interesting features recently discovered in the Magellanic Cloud System. These were revealed by the spatial distribution of OB-type candidate stars, selected based on UV, optical and IR photometry and proper motions from existing large-area catalogs. As a pilot study of our project, we are studying OB-star candidates in the Leading Arm (LA) of the Magellanic Stream, a gaseous tidal structure with no stellar counterpart known so far. Our targets group in three clumps near regions of high HI density in the LA. If confirmed, these young stars would evidence recent star formation in the LA, and they would help better understand and constrain the formation of the LA and its interactions with the Milky Way.

To appear in the proceedings of "Fifty Years of Wide Field Studies in the Southern Hemisphere: Resolved Stellar Populations in the Galactic Bulge and the Magellanic Clouds", to be published in the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series