| Issue |
A&A
Volume 696, April 2025
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | A244 | |
| Number of page(s) | 15 | |
| Section | Galactic structure, stellar clusters and populations | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202452936 | |
| Published online | 29 April 2025 | |
Astrophysical properties of star clusters projected toward tidally perturbed SMC regions
1
Instituto Interdisciplinario de Ciencias Básicas (ICB), CONICET-UNCUYO,
Padre J. Contreras 1300,
M5502JMA,
Mendoza,
Argentina
2
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET),
Godoy Cruz 2290,
C1425FQB,
Buenos Aires,
Argentina
★ Corresponding author: denisillesca1113@gmail.com
Received:
8
November
2024
Accepted:
11
March
2025
We report on the astrophysical properties of a sample of star clusters in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). We aimed to investigating the connection between the ages, heliocentric distances and metallicities of the selected star clusters with the existence of tidally perturbed or induced outermost SMC regions. We derived the star cluster fundamental parameters from relatively deep Survey of the Magellanic Stellar History (SMASH) color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs), cleaned from field star contamination, and compared them with a thousand synthetic CMDs covering a wide range of heliocentric distances, ages, and metal content. Heliocentric distances for 15 star clusters are derived for the first time, which represents an increase of ~50% of SMC clusters with estimated heliocentric distances. Analysis of the age-metallicity relationships (AMRs) of clusters located in the outermost regions distributed around the SMC and in the SMC Main Body reveals that they have followed the overall chemical enrichment history of the galaxy. However, since half of the studied clusters are situated in front of or behind the SMC Main Body, we concluded that they formed in the SMC and have traveled outward because of tidal effects from the interaction with the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Furthermore, metal-rich clusters formed recently in some of these outermost regions from gas that was also dragged by tidal effects from the inner SMC. These findings lead to the SMC being considered as a galaxy scarred by the LMC tidal interaction with distance-perturbed and newly induced outermost stellar substructures.
Key words: methods: data analysis / techniques: photometric / Magellanic Clouds / galaxies: star clusters: general
© The Authors 2025
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This article is published in open access under the Subscribe to Open model. Subscribe to A&A to support open access publication.
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.