The Magellanic Edges Survey IV. Complex tidal debris in the SMC outskirts

Abstract

We use data from the Magellanic Edges Survey (MagES) in combination with Gaia EDR3 to study the extreme southern outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), focussing on a field at the eastern end of a long arm-like structure which wraps around the southern periphery of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Unlike the remainder of this structure, which is thought to be comprised of perturbed LMC disk material, the aggregate properties of the field indicate a clear connection with the SMC. We find evidence for two stellar populations in the field: one having properties consistent with the outskirts of the main SMC body, and the other significantly perturbed. The perturbed population is on average ~0.2 dex more metal-rich, and is located ~7 kpc in front of the dominant population with a total space velocity relative to the SMC centre of ~230 km/s broadly in the direction of the LMC. We speculate on possible origins for this perturbed population, the most plausible of which is that it comprises debris from the inner SMC that has been recently tidally stripped by interactions with the LMC.

5 pages, 4 figures; Accepted by MNRAS

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• UVIT Study of the MAgellanic Clouds (U-SMAC) II. A Far-UV catalog of the Small Magellanic Cloud: Morphology and Kinematics of young stellar population
• The Magellanic Puzzle: origin of the periphery
• Kinematics of stellar substructures in the Small Magellanic Cloud
• The red giant branch tip in the SDSS, PS1, JWST, NGRST and Euclid photometric systems. Calibration in optical passbands using Gaia DR3 synthetic photometry
• The 3D kinematics of stellar substructures in the periphery of the Large Magellanic Cloud