Image Details

Choose export citation format:

Magellanic Mayhem: Metallicities and Motions

  • Authors: J. Grady, V. Belokurov, and N. W. Evans

2021 The Astrophysical Journal 909 150.

  • Provider: AAS Journals

Caption: Figure 17.

We show the stellar density of stars near the SMC in Magellanic Bridge coordinates. Top left: black solid line is an outer isodensity contour corresponding to 10 stars per square degree. We fit an ellipse to this contour, shown by the solid red line, whose ellipticity is mild at ∼0.21. Top right: we overlay logarithmically spaced isodensity contours on the SMC where a clear S shape is apparent, reminiscent of tidal tails and consistent with the RR Lyrae SMC morphology observed by Belokurov et al. (2017). Bottom left: we now only show giants with predicted metallicities of ﹩\left[\mathrm{Fe}/{\rm{H}}\right]\lt -1.25﹩ dex and contours trace pixels corresponding to the 2.5th, 5th, 10th, 25th, and 50th percent contour levels for stars around the SMC. Bottom right: we only consider stars with ﹩\left[\mathrm{Fe}/{\rm{H}}\right]\gt -0.75﹩ dex and trace the same contour levels with black solid lines. The red line corresponds to the outermost contour of the metal-poor SMC giants. While the metal-rich giants are located much more centrally within the SMC, the outer regions still bear the signature of tidal disruption, indicating that the SMC has been significantly disrupted across a range of stellar populations.

Other Images in This Article

Show More

Copyright and Terms & Conditions