Metallicities and ages for 35 star clusters and their surrounding fields in the Small Magellanic Cloud

Abstract

In this work we study 35 stellar clusters in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) in order to provide their mean metallicities and ages. We also provide mean metallicities of the fields surrounding the clusters. We used Strömgren photometry obtained with the 4.1 m SOAR telescope and take advantage of $(b-y)$ and $m1$ colors for which there is a metallicity calibration presented in the literature. The spatial metallicity and age distributions of clusters across the SMC are investigated using the results obtained by Strömgren photometry. We confirm earlier observations that younger, more metal-rich star clusters are concentrated in the central regions of the galaxy, while older, more metal-poor clusters are located farther from the SMC center. We construct the age-metallicity relation for the studied clusters and find good agreement with theoretical models of chemical enrichment, and with other literature age and metallicity values for those clusters. We also provide the mean metallicities for old and young populations of the field stars surrounding the clusters, and find the latter to be in good agreement with recent studies of the SMC Cepheid population. Finally, the Strömgren photometry obtained for this study is made publicly available.

22 pages, 12 figures, 6 tables, Published in A&A

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• Ca II Triplet Spectroscopy of Small Magellanic Cloud Red Giants. V. Abundances and Velocities for 12 Massive Clusters
• Metallicities and ages for star clusters and their surrounding fields in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• The VISCACHA survey -- VII. Assembly history of the Magellanic Bridge and SMC Wing from star clusters
• Photometric metallicity for 694233 Galactic giant stars from Gaia DR3 synthetic Stromgren photometry. Metallicity distribution functions of halo sub-structures
• Ca II Triplet Spectroscopy of Small Magellanic Cloud Red Giants. VI. Analysis of chemical properties of the Main Body
• A genuine Large Magellanic Cloud age gap star cluster
• Metallicity estimation of MW, SMC and LMC classical Cepheids from the shape of the $V$- and $I$-band light curves
• The VISCACHA survey -- V. Rejuvenating three faint SMC clusters
• Driving factors behind multiple populations
• First evidence of a stripped star cluster from the Small Magellanic Cloud
• Strömgren photometric metallicity map of the Magellanic Cloud stars using Gaia DR3--XP spectra