The intrinsic reddening of the Magellanic Clouds as traced by background galaxies -- II. The Small Magellanic Cloud

Abstract

We present a map of the total intrinsic reddening across ~34 deg${}^2$ of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) derived using optical ($ugriz$) and near-infrared (IR; $YJ{K}_{\mathrm{s}}$) spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of background galaxies. The reddening map is created using a subsample of 29,274 galaxies with low levels of intrinsic reddening based on the LePhare ${\chi }^2$ minimisation SED-fitting routine. We find statistically significant enhanced levels of reddening associated with the main body of the SMC compared with regions in the outskirts [$\Delta E(B-V)\simeq 0.3$ mag]. A comparison with literature reddening maps of the SMC shows that, after correcting for differences in the volume of the SMC sampled, there is good agreement between our results and maps created using young stars. In contrast, we find significant discrepancies between our results and maps created using old stars or based on longer wavelength far-IR dust emission that could stem from biased samples in the former and uncertainties in the far-IR emissivity and the optical properties of the dust grains in the latter. This study represents one of the first large-scale categorisations of extragalactic sources behind the SMC and as such we provide the LePhare outputs for our full sample of ~500,000 sources.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in MNRAS, 13 pages, 6 figures and 4 tables. Tables 1, 3 and 4 will be available in full as Supporting Information in the online version of the article

References in corpus (52)

• SciPy 1.0--Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python
• The Astropy Project: Building an inclusive, open-science project and status of the v2.0 core package
• Large Magellanic Cloud Cepheid Standards Provide a 1% Foundation for the Determination of the Hubble Constant and Stronger Evidence for Physics Beyond LambdaCDM
• COSMOS Photometric Redshifts with 30-bands for 2-deg2
• Mass assembly in quiescent and star-forming galaxies since z=4 from UltraVISTA
• A Redetermination of the Hubble Constant with the Hubble Space Telescope from a Differential Distance Ladder
• Calibration of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch (TRGB)
• 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 Magellanic Clouds Photometric Survey: The Small Magellanic Cloud Stellar Catalog and Extinction Map
• A Critical Assessment of Photometric Redshift Methods: A CANDELS Investigation
• PESSTO : survey description and products from the first data release by the Public ESO Spectroscopic Survey of Transient Objects
• The VISTA Deep Extragalactic Observations (VIDEO) Survey
• The VMC Survey - I. Strategy and First Data
• 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
• The Spitzer Survey of the Small Magellanic Cloud: S3MC Imaging and Photometry in the Mid- and Far-Infrared Wavebands
• Clustering of Local Group distances: publication bias or correlated measurements? I. The Large Magellanic Cloud
• New Optical Reddening Maps of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds
• Dust and Gas in the Magellanic Clouds from the HERITAGE Herschel Key Project. I. Dust Properties and Insights into the Origin of the Submm Excess Emission
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): Accurate Panchromatic Photometry from Optical Priors using LAMBDAR
• SMASH - Survey of the MAgellanic Stellar History
• Clustering of Local Group distances: publication bias or correlated measurements? III. The Small Magellanic Cloud
• Dust and Gas in the Magellanic Clouds from the HERITAGE Herschel Key Project. II. Gas-to-Dust Ratio Variations across ISM Phases
• 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
• A re-classification of Cepheids in the Gaia Data Release 2
• The Spitzer Survey of the Small Magellanic Cloud (S3MC): Insights into the Life-Cycle of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons
• The VMC survey - XXXI. The spatially resolved star formation history of the main body of the Small Magellanic Cloud
• 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
• Modelling the optical properties of composite and porous interstellar grains
• The Cepheid period -- luminosity -- metallicity relation based on Gaia DR2 data
• The VMC survey - XXVI. Structure of the Small Magellanic Cloud from RR Lyrae stars
• The Complex Distribution of Recently Formed Stars. Bimodal Stellar Clustering in the Star-Forming Region NGC 346
• The effect of metallicity on Cepheid Period-Luminosity relations from a Baade-Wesselink analysis of Cepheids in the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds
• High Resolution \hi observations of the Western Magellanic Bridge
• The Magellanic Quasars Survey. III. Spectroscopic Confirmation of 758 AGNs Behind the Magellanic Clouds
• Empirical calibration of the reddening maps in the Magellanic Clouds
• Dust models post-Planck: constraining the far-infrared opacity of dust in the diffuse interstellar medium
• The First Maps of ${\kappa }_d$ -- the Dust Mass Absorption Coefficient -- in Nearby Galaxies, with DustPedia
• The VMC Survey -- XXXIV. Morphology of Stellar Populations in the Magellanic Clouds
• Variability-selected quasars behind the Small Magellanic Cloud
• The Magellanic Quasars Survey. I. Doubling the Number of Known AGNs Behind the Small Magellanic Cloud
• Density, porosity, mineralogy, and internal structure of cosmic dust and alteration of its properties during high velocity atmospheric entry
• Reddening map and recent star formation in the Magellanic Clouds based on OGLE IV Cepheids
• Mapping atomic and diffuse interstellar band absorption across the Magellanic Clouds and the Milky Way
• Interstellar Extinction by Spheroidal Dust Grains
• Star Clusters in the Magellanic Clouds - II. Age-Dating, Classification and Spatio-Temporal Distribution of the SMC Clusters
• New quasars behind the Magellanic Clouds. Spectroscopic confirmation of near-infrared selected candidates
• New X-ray quasars behind the Small Magellanic Cloud
• The intrinsic reddening of the Magellanic Clouds as traced by background galaxies -- I. The bar and outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud
• Identification of AGN in the XMM-Newton X-ray survey of the SMC
• The VMC Survey - XXXII. Pre-main sequence populations in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Cited by in corpus (11)

• 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 -- XLII. Near-infrared period-luminosity relations for RR Lyrae stars and the structure of the Large Magellanic Cloud
• The VMC Survey -- XL. Three-dimensional structure of the Small Magellanic Cloud as derived from red clump stars
• Short period variability in the globular cluster NGC 419 and the SMC field
• Precise Measurements of the LMC Bar's Geometry With Gaia DR3 and a Novel Solution to Crowding Induced Incompleteness in Star Counting
• The Magellanic Puzzle: origin of the periphery
• 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
• Revisiting a detached stellar structure in the outer northeastern region of the Small Magellanic Cloud
• OGLE-IV Period-Luminosity relation of the LMC: an analysis using mean and median magnitudes