Studying Star Clusters as Tracers of the LMC's Chemical Enrichment

PALMA, T.; CLARIÁ, J. J.; GEISLER, D.; AHUMADA, A. V.

Congreso; Fifty Years of Wide Field Studies in the Southern Hemisphere: Resolved Stellar Populations of the Galactic Bulge and Magellanic Clouds; 2013

Based on photometric observations made with the Cerro TololoInter-American (CTIO) Victor Blanco 4-m telescope, wepresent the results of a study of the chemical evolution of the LargeMagellanic Cloud (LMC) for the last 2.2 Gyr. As tracers of the LMC chemical enrichment, we used 39 star clusters projected on the bar, 27on the inner disc, and 15 on the outer disc. Our sample includes 44previously unstudied clusters. In all cases we determined the size,reddening, deprojected distance, age and metallicity. We show that themore metal-rich clusters are mainly located in the inner disc, whilemore metal-poor clusters are distributed throughout the entire disc.Intermediate-age clusters tend to be located at greater deprojectedgalactocentric distances while the youngest ones are mainly found in theinner disc. These trends are maintained when the sample is complementedwith clusters observed by other authors with the same technique. Theseresults reinforce the idea of the absence of a radial metallicitygradient in the LMC for clusters with subsolar metallicities. Theresulting age-metallicity relationship appears to be independent ofwhich LMC region is considered.