On a possible origin for the lack of old star clusters in the Small Magellanic Cloud

D.D. CARPINTERO; F.A. GÓMEZ; A.E. PIATTI

MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2013 vol. 435 p. 63 - 67

0035-8711

  We  model the  dynamical  interaction between  the  Small and  Large  Magellanic   Clouds   and   their  corresponding   stellar   cluster  populations.  Our goal is to explore whether the lack of old clusters ($gtrsim  7$  Gyr) in  the Small Magellanic  Cloud (SMC) can  be the result  of the   capture of  clusters by  the Large Magellanic  Cloud (LMC),  as well  as their  ejection due to the tidal  interaction between the two galaxies. For this  purpose we  perform a suite of numerical  simulations probing a wide range of   parameters for the orbit of the  SMC about the LMC. We find that, for orbital  eccentricities $e geq 0.4$, approximately $15$ per cent of  the SMC clusters  are  captured by the  LMC.  In addition, another $50$ per cent is ejected from  the interacting  system. In general, the clusters lost by the  SMC are the less  tightly bound cluster population. Within  this scenario  it is  possible to   interpret  the difference observed between  the star field and cluster SMC  Age-Metallicity Relationships for ages $gtrsim 7$ Gyr.