Stellar substructures in the periphery of the Magellanic Clouds with the VISTA Hemisphere Survey from the red clump and other tracers

Abstract

We study the morphology of the stellar periphery of the Magellanic Clouds in search of substructure using near-infrared imaging data from the VISTA Hemisphere Survey (VHS). Based on the selection of different stellar populations using the ($J-K_{\mathrm{s}}$, $K_{\mathrm{s}}$) colour-magnitude diagram, we confirm the presence of substructures related to the interaction history of the Clouds and find new substructures on the easter side of the LMC disc which may be owing to the influence of the Milky Way, and on the northern side of the SMC, which is probably associated to the ellipsoidal structure of the galaxy. We also study the luminosity function of red clump stars in the SMC and confirm the presence of a bi-modal distance distribution, in the form of a foreground population. We find that this bi-modality is still detectable in the eastern regions of the galaxy out to a 10 deg distance from its centre. Additionally, a background structure is detected in the North between 7 and 10 deg from the centre which might belong to the Counter Bridge, and a foreground structure is detected in the South between 6 and 8 deg from the centre which might be linked to the Old Bridge.

arXiv comment20 pages, 19 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (63)

• Maps of Dust IR Emission for Use in Estimation of Reddening and CMBR Foregrounds
• Measuring Reddening with SDSS Stellar Spectra and Recalibrating SFD
• The Galaxy Evolution Explorer: A Space Ultraviolet Survey Mission
• Gaia Data Release 1. Summary of the astrometric, photometric, and survey properties
• Gaia Data Release 2: Kinematics of globular clusters and dwarf galaxies around the Milky Way
• Are the Magellanic Clouds on their First Passage about the Milky Way?
• The Dark Energy Survey Data Release 1
• The VMC Survey - I. Strategy and First Data
• The Proper Motion of the Large Magellanic Cloud using HST
• The disruption of nearby galaxies by the Milky Way
• The Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA): Design, Technical Overview and Performance
• K-Band Calibration of the Red Clump Luminosity
• Stellar Populations in the Large Magellanic Cloud from 2MASS
• The VISTA Science Archive
• The Tidal Origin of the Magellanic Stream and the Possibility of a Stellar Counterpart
• Population effects on the red giant clump absolute magnitude: The K-band
• The 200 Degree-Long Magellanic Stream System
• Magellanic Cloud Structure from Near-IR Surveys II: Star Count Maps and the Intrinsic Elongation of the LMC
• The VISTA ZYJHKs Photometric System: Calibration from 2MASS
• Ram Pressure Stripping of the Large Magellanic Cloud's Disk as a Probe of the Milky Way's Circumgalactic Medium
• The Carnegie Hubble Program: The Distance and Structure of the SMC as Revealed by Mid-infrared Observations of Cepheids
• SMASH - Survey of the MAgellanic Stellar History
• A Population of Accreted SMC Stars in the LMC
• Clustering of Local Group distances: publication bias or correlated measurements? III. The Small Magellanic Cloud
• The 3D structure 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
• The Magellanic Bridge: The Nearest Purely Tidal Stellar Population
• Clouds, Streams and Bridges. Redrawing the blueprint of the Magellanic System with Gaia DR1
• SMASHing the LMC: A Tidally-induced Warp in the Outer LMC and a Large-scale Reddening Map
• An Ultra-Faint Galaxy Candidate Discovered in Early Data from the Magellanic Satellites Survey
• The Morphologies of the Small Magellanic Cloud
• The red clump absolute magnitude based on revised Hipparcos parallaxes
• A Tidally-Stripped Stellar Component of the Magellanic Bridge
• A 10 kpc stellar substructure at the edge of the Large Magellanic Cloud: perturbed outer disk or evidence for tidal stripping?
• Variability and spectral classification of LMC giants: results from DENIS and EROS
• A new LMC K-band distance from precision measurements of nearby red clump stars
• Empirical photometric calibration of the Gaia Red Clump: colours, effective temperature and absolute magnitude
• The VMC survey - XXVI. Structure of the Small Magellanic Cloud from RR Lyrae stars
• Red clump stars and Gaia: Calibration of the standard candle using a hierarchical probabilistic model
• The Proper Motion Field Along the Magellanic Bridge: a New Probe of the LMC-SMC Interaction
• Clustering of Local Group distances: publication bias or correlated measurements? II. M31 and beyond
• An estimate of the structural parameters of the Large Magellanic Cloud using red clump stars
• Red Giants in the Small Magellanic Cloud. I. Disk and Tidal Stream Kinematics
• Substructures and tidal distortions in the Magellanic stellar periphery
• Toward a Complete Understanding of the Magellanic Stream Formation
• Clouds in Arms
• The So-Called "Bar" in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• An Interaction of a Magellanic Leading Arm High Velocity Cloud with the Milky Way Disk
• The detection of an older population in the Magellanic Bridge
• The VMC survey VII. Reddening map of the 30 Doradus field and the structure of the cold interstellar medium
• The VMC Survey - XXIV. Signatures of tidally stripped stellar populations from the inner Small Magellanic Cloud
• The VMC Survey -- XXXIV. Morphology of Stellar Populations in the Magellanic Clouds
• OGLE-ing the Magellanic System: Stellar populations in the Magellanic Bridge
• The Clouds are breaking: tracing the Magellanic system with Gaia DR1 Mira variables
• Structure of the Large Magellanic Cloud from the Near Infrared magnitudes of Red Clump stars
• The Magellanic Inter-Cloud Project (MAGIC) III: First spectroscopic evidence of a dwarf stripping a dwarf
• The VMC survey -- XXXVIII. Proper motion of the Magellanic Bridge
• Gaia view of a stellar sub-structure in front of the Small Magellanic Cloud
• On the nature of a shell of young stars in the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud
• Structured star formation in the Magellanic inter-Cloud region
• OGLE-ing the Magellanic System: RR Lyrae Stars in the Bridge
• OGLE-ing the Magellanic System: Cepheids in the Bridge

Cited by in corpus (22)

• The VMC Survey -- XLVIII. Classical Cepheids unveil the 3D geometry of the LMC
• The VMC survey -- XLIV: Mapping metallicity trends in the Large Magellanic Cloud using near-infrared passbands
• The VMC survey -- XXXIX: Mapping metallicity trends in the Small Magellanic Cloud using near-infrared passbands
• Ca II Triplet Spectroscopy of Small Magellanic Cloud Red Giants. V. Abundances and Velocities for 12 Massive Clusters
• The Magellanic Edges Survey III. Kinematics of the disturbed LMC outskirts
• Presence of red giant population in the foreground stellar sub-structure of the Small Magellanic Cloud
• Ca II Triplet Spectroscopy of Small Magellanic Cloud Red Giants. VI. Analysis of chemical properties of the Main Body
• Equilibrium dynamical models in the inner region of the Large Magellanic Cloud based on Gaia DR3 kinematics
• The VMC survey -- XLVII. Turbulence-Controlled Hierarchical Star Formation in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• The Magellanic Edges Survey IV. Complex tidal debris in the SMC outskirts
• Lessons from the Magellanic System and its modeling
• The VMC survey -- XLV. Proper motion of the outer LMC and the impact of the SMC
• The Magellanic Puzzle: origin of the periphery
• The VMC survey -- LIV. The internal kinematics of the LMC with new VISTA observations
• Kinematics of stellar substructures in the Small Magellanic Cloud
• Kinematical Analysis of Substructure in the Southern Periphery of the Large Magellanic Cloud
• The 3D kinematics of stellar substructures in the periphery of the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Discovery of NES, an extended tidal structure in the North-East of the Large Magellanic Cloud
• The YMCA (Yes, Magellanic Clouds Again) survey: probing the outer regions of the Magellanic system with VST
• Strömgren photometric metallicity map of the Magellanic Cloud stars using Gaia DR3--XP spectra
• The VMC survey -- XLVI. Stellar proper motions in the centre of the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Identification of quasars variable over long time scales from infrared surveys. Ensemble variability and structure function properties