The VMC Survey - XXIV. Signatures of tidally stripped stellar populations from the inner Small Magellanic Cloud

S. SUBRAMANIAN, S. RUBELE, N. SUN, L. GIRARDI, R. DE GRIJS, J.TH. VAN LOON, M.-R.L. CIONI, A.E. PIATTI, K. BEKKI, J. EMERSON, V.D. IVANOV, L. KERBER, M. MARCONI, V. RIPEPI, B.L. TATTON

MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2017 vol. 467 p. 2980 - 2995

0035-8711

We study the luminosity function of intermediate-age red-clump stars using deep,near-infrared photometric data covering ∼ 20 deg 2 located throughout the central partof the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), comprising the main body and the galaxy?s east-ern wing, based on observations obtained with the VISTA Survey of the MagellanicClouds (VMC). We identified regions which show a foreground population (∼11.8 ± 2kpc in front of the main body) in the form of a distance bimodality in the red-clumpdistribution. The most likely explanation for the origin of this feature is tidal strip-ping from the SMC rather than the extended stellar haloes of the Magellanic Cloudsand/or tidally stripped stars from the Large Magellanic Cloud. The homogeneous andcontinuous VMC data trace this feature in the direction of the Magellanic Bridge and,particularly, identify (for the first time) the inner region (∼ 2 ? 2.5 kpc from thecentre) from where the signatures of interactions start becoming evident. This resultprovides observational evidence of the formation of the Magellanic Bridge from tidallystripped material from the SMC.