Bibcode
López Sánchez, Ángel R.; Read, Justin I.; Noël, Noelia E. D.; Conn, Blair C.; Carrera, R.
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 471, Issue 4, p.4571-4578
Advertised on:
11
2017
Citations
34
Refereed citations
31
Description
The Magellanic Bridge (MB) is a gaseous stream that links the Large
(LMC) and Small (SMC) Magellanic Clouds. Current simulations suggest
that the MB forms from a recent interaction between the Clouds. In this
scenario, the MB should also have an associated stellar bridge formed by
stars tidally stripped from the SMC by the LMC. There are several
observational evidences for these stripped stars, from the presence of
intermediate age populations in the MB and carbon stars, to the recent
observation of an over-density of RR Lyrae stars offset from the MB.
However, spectroscopic confirmation of stripped stars in the MB remains
lacking. In this paper, we use medium resolution spectra to derive the
radial velocities and metallicities of stars in two fields along the MB.
We show from both their chemistry and kinematics that the bulk of these
stars must have been tidally stripped from the SMC. This is the first
spectroscopic evidence for a dwarf galaxy being tidally stripped by a
larger dwarf.
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Galaxy Evolution in the Local Group
Galaxy formation and evolution is a fundamental Astrophysical problem. Its study requires “travelling back in time”, for which there are two complementary approaches. One is to analyse galaxy properties as a function of red-shift. Our team focuses on the other approach, called “Galactic Archaeology”. It is based on the determination of galaxy
Matteo
Monelli