The intrinsic reddening of the Magellanic Clouds as traced by background galaxies -- I. The bar and outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud

Abstract

We present a method to map the total intrinsic reddening of a foreground extinguishing medium via the analysis of spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of background galaxies. In this pilot study, we implement this technique in two distinct regions of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) - the bar and the southern outskirts - using a combination of optical and near-infrared $ugrizYJ{K}_{\mathrm{s}}$ broadband imaging. We adopt the LePhare ${\chi }^2$-minimisation SED-fitting routine and various samples of galaxies and/or quasi-stellar objects to investigate the intrinsic reddening. We find that only when we construct reddening maps using objects classified as galaxies with low levels of intrinsic reddening (i.e. ellipticals/lenticulars and early-type spirals), the resultant maps are consistent with previous literature determinations i.e. the intrinsic reddening of the SMC bar is higher than that in the outer environs. We employ two sets of galaxy templates - one theoretical and one empirical - to test for template dependencies in the resulting reddening maps and find that the theoretical templates imply systematically higher reddening values by up to 0.20 mag in $E(B-V)$. A comparison with previous reddening maps, based on the stellar components of the SMC, typically shows reasonable agreement. There is, however, significant variation amongst the literature reddening maps as to the level of intrinsic reddening associated with the bar. Thus, it is difficult to unambiguously state that instances of significant discrepancies are the result of appreciable levels of dust not accounted for in some literature reddening maps or whether they reflect issues with our adopted methodology.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in MNRAS, 21 pages, 13 figures and 4 tables

References in corpus (72)

• Maps of Dust IR Emission for Use in Estimation of Reddening and CMBR Foregrounds
• Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003
• The Astropy Project: Building an inclusive, open-science project and status of the v2.0 core package
• Measuring Reddening with SDSS Stellar Spectra and Recalibrating SFD
• The Dust Content and Opacity of Actively Star-Forming Galaxies
• The Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) -- Overview
• Accurate photometric redshifts for the CFHT Legacy Survey calibrated using the VIMOS VLT Deep Survey
• Evolutionary models for very-low-mass stars and brown dwarfs with dusty atmospheres
• A Quantitative Comparison of SMC, LMC, and Milky Way UV to NIR Extinction Curves
• COSMOS Photometric Redshifts with 30-bands for 2-deg2
• Bayesian photometric redshift estimation
• Mass assembly in quiescent and star-forming galaxies since z=4 from UltraVISTA
• The Dark Energy Camera
• zCOSMOS: A Large VLT/VIMOS redshift survey covering 0 < z < 3 in the COSMOS field
• Spectral Energy Distributions of Hard X-ray selected AGNs in the XMDS Survey
• The First Release COSMOS Optical and Near-IR Data and Catalog
• The Dark Energy Survey Data Release 1
• The Magellanic Clouds Photometric Survey: The Large Magellanic Cloud Stellar Catalog and Extinction Map
• The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey - First epoch VVDS-Deep survey: 11564 spectra with 17.5<=IAB<=24, and the redshift distribution over 0< z <=5
• The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey final data release: a spectroscopic sample of 35016 galaxies and AGN out to z~6.7 selected with 17.5<=i_{AB}<=24.7
• The Emergence of the Thick Disk in a CDM Universe
• The Magellanic Clouds Photometric Survey: The Small Magellanic Cloud Stellar Catalog and Extinction Map
• Empirical extinction coefficients for the GALEX, SDSS, 2MASS and WISE passbands
• The Role of Dwarf Galaxy Interactions in Shaping the Magellanic System and Implications for Magellanic Irregulars
• The VISTA Deep Extragalactic Observations (VIDEO) Survey
• The VMC Survey - I. Strategy and First Data
• A Deep, Wide Field, Optical, and Near Infrared Catalog of a Large Area around the Hubble Deep Field North
• The SWIRE-VVDS-CFHTLS surveys: stellar mass assembly over the last 10 Gyears. Evidence for a major build up of the red sequence between z=2 and z=1
• Thin, thick and dark discs in LCDM
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): the G02 field, Herschel-ATLAS target selection and Data Release 3
• New Period-Luminosity and Period-Color Relations of Classical Cepheids: I. Cepheids in the Galaxy
• The Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA): Design, Technical Overview and Performance
• The Spitzer Survey of the Small Magellanic Cloud: FIR Emission and Cold Gas in the SMC
• The VISTA Science Archive
• The Tidal Origin of the Magellanic Stream and the Possibility of a Stellar Counterpart
• New Optical Reddening Maps of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): Accurate Panchromatic Photometry from Optical Priors using LAMBDAR
• The Blue Tip of the Stellar Locus: Measuring Reddening with the SDSS
• Deep near-infrared spectroscopy of passively evolving galaxies at z>1.4
• The VISTA ZYJHKs Photometric System: Calibration from 2MASS
• SMASH - Survey of the MAgellanic Stellar History
• The extinction law at high redshift and its implications
• A Population of Accreted SMC Stars in the LMC
• The 3D structure of the Small Magellanic Cloud
• Depth estimation of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds
• The VMC Survey - XIV. First results on the look-back time star-formation rate tomography of the Small Magellanic Cloud
• The VMC Survey. XXV. The 3D structure of the Small Magellanic Cloud from Classical Cepheids
• The VMC survey - XXXI. The spatially resolved star formation history of the main body of the Small Magellanic Cloud
• A Digital Photometric Survey of the Magellanic Clouds: First Results From One Million Stars
• Variability-Selected Quasars in MACHO Project Magellanic Cloud Fields
• SMASHing the LMC: A Tidally-induced Warp in the Outer LMC and a Large-scale Reddening Map
• A Tidally-Stripped Stellar Component of the Magellanic Bridge
• Sub-millimeter to centimeter excess emission from the Magellanic Clouds. I. Global spectral energy distribution
• The VMC survey - XXVI. Structure of the Small Magellanic Cloud from RR Lyrae stars
• The panchromatic view of the Magellanic Clouds from Classical Cepheids. I. Distance, Reddening and Geometry of the Large Magellanic Cloud disk
• The Magellanic Quasars Survey. III. Spectroscopic Confirmation of 758 AGNs Behind the Magellanic Clouds
• The large area KX quasar catalogue: I. Analysis of the photometric redshift selection and the complete quasar catalogue
• Designing Future Dark Energy Space Mission: I. Building Realistic Galaxy Spectro-Photometric Catalogs and their first applications
• The VMC survey VII. Reddening map of the 30 Doradus field and the structure of the cold interstellar medium
• Exploring the Very Extended Low Surface Brightness Stellar Populations of the Large Magellanic Cloud with SMASH
• Variability-selected quasars behind the Small Magellanic Cloud
• The star formation history of the Large Magellanic Cloud star cluster NGC1751
• Star Formation History in two fields of the Small Magellanic Cloud Bar
• Background galaxies as reddening probes throughout the Magellanic Clouds
• The Canada-France Deep Fields III: Photometric Redshift Distribution to I(AB) ~ 24
• The Magellanic Quasars Survey. I. Doubling the Number of Known AGNs Behind the Small Magellanic Cloud
• Star Clusters in the Magellanic Clouds - II. Age-Dating, Classification and Spatio-Temporal Distribution of the SMC Clusters
• The VMC survey -IX. Pilot study of the proper motion of stellar populations in the LMC from 2MASS and VISTA data
• New quasars behind the Magellanic Clouds. Spectroscopic confirmation of near-infrared selected candidates
• New X-ray quasars behind the Small Magellanic Cloud
• 4MOST Consortium Survey 9: One Thousand and One Magellanic Fields (1001MC)
• Identification of AGN in the XMM-Newton X-ray survey of the SMC

Cited by in corpus (11)

• OGLE-ing the Magellanic System: Optical Reddening Maps of the Large and Small Magellanic Cloud from Red Clump Stars
• The VMC survey -- XLIII. The spatially resolved star formation history across the Large Magellanic Cloud
• The Second Data Release of the Survey of the MAgellanic Stellar History (SMASH)
• The VMC survey -- XLI. Stellar proper motions within the Small Magellanic Cloud
• Euclid: Early Release Observations -- Deep anatomy of nearby galaxies
• The intrinsic reddening of the Magellanic Clouds as traced by background galaxies -- II. The Small Magellanic Cloud
• The VMC survey -- XLVII. Turbulence-Controlled Hierarchical Star Formation in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• The VMC survey -- LIV. The internal kinematics of the LMC with new VISTA observations
• The intrinsic reddening of the Magellanic Clouds as traced by background galaxies -- III. The Large Magellanic Cloud
• The VMC survey -- LIII. Data release #7. Complete survey data and data from additional programmes
• The VMC survey -- XLVI. Stellar proper motions in the centre of the Large Magellanic Cloud