The 1.1 mm Continuum Survey of the Small Magellanic Cloud: Physical Properties and Evolution of the Dust-selected Clouds

Abstract

The first 1.1 mm continuum survey toward the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) was performed using the AzTEC instrument installed on the ASTE 10-m telescope. This survey covered 4.5 deg${}^2$ of the SMC with $1\sigma$ noise levels of $5-12$ mJy beam${}^{-1}$, and 44 extended objects were identified. The 1.1 mm extended emission has good spatial correlation with $Herschel$ 160 $\mu \mathrm{m}$, indicating that the origin of the 1.1 mm extended emission is thermal emission from a cold dust component. We estimated physical properties using the 1.1 mm and filtered $Herschel$ data (100, 160, 250, 350, and 500 $\mu \mathrm{m}$). The 1.1 mm objects show dust temperatures of $17-45$ K and gas masses of $4\times 10^3-3\times 10^5{M}_{\odot }$, assuming single-temperature thermal emission from the cold dust with an emissivity index, $\beta$, of 1.2 and a gas-to-dust ratio of 1000. These physical properties are very similar to those of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in our galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud. The 1.1 mm objects also displayed good spatial correlation with the $Spitzer$ 24 $\mu \mathrm{m}$ and CO emission, suggesting that the 1.1 mm objects trace the dense gas regions as sites of massive star formation. The dust temperature of the 1.1 mm objects also demonstrated good correlation with the 24 $\mu \mathrm{m}$ flux connected to massive star formation. This supports the hypothesis that the heating source of the cold dust is mainly local star-formation activity in the 1.1 mm objects. The classification of the 1.1 mm objects based on the existence of star-formation activity reveals the differences in the dust temperature, gas mass, and radius, which reflects the evolution sequence of GMCs.

26 pages, 13 figures. Appeared in ApJ

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• Spitzer and Herschel studies of dust in supernova remnants in the Small Magellanic Cloud