Gurtina Besla, David Martinez-Delgado, Roeland P. van der Marel, Yuri Beletsky, Mark Seibert, Edward F. Schlafly, Eva K. Grebel, Fabian Neyer
Published 2016-02-12, Submitted to ApJ. Comments are welcomed
We present deep optical images of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMCand SMC) using a low cost telephoto lens with a wide field of view to explorestellar substructure in the outskirts of the stellar disk of the LMC (r < 10degrees from the center). These data have higher resolution than existing starcount maps, and highlight the existence of stellar arcs and multiple spiralarms in the northern periphery, with no comparable counterparts in the South.We compare these data to detailed simulations of the LMC disk outskirts,following interactions with its low mass companion, the SMC. We considerinteraction in isolation and with the inclusion of the Milky Way tidal field.The simulations are used to assess the origin of the northern structures,including also the low density stellar arc recently identified in the DES databy Mackey et al. 2015 at ~ 15 degrees. We conclude that repeated closeinteractions with the SMC are primarily responsible for the asymmetric stellarstructures seen in the periphery of the LMC. The orientation and density ofthese arcs can be used to constrain the LMC's interaction history with andimpact parameter of the SMC. More generally, we find that such asymmetricstructures should be ubiquitous about pairs of dwarfs and can persist for 1-2Gyr even after the secondary merges entirely with the primary. As such, thelack of a companion around a Magellanic Irregular does not disprove thehypothesis that their asymmetric structures are driven by dwarf-dwarfinteractions.
R. D'Abrusco, M. Cantiello, M. Paolillo, V. Pota, N. R. Napolitano, L. Limatola, M. Spavone, A. Grado, E. Iodice, M. Capaccioli, R. Peletier, G. Longo, M. Hilker, S. Mieske, E. K. Grebel, T. Lisker, C. Wittmann, G. van de Ven, G. Fabbiano
Published 2016-02-19, 9 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ Letters
We report the discovery of a complex extended density enhancement in theGlobular Clusters (GCs) in the central $\sim 0.5(^{\circ})^2$ ($\sim 0.06$Mpc$^2$) of the Fornax cluster, corresponding to $\sim 50\%$ of the area within1 core radius. This overdensity connects the GC system of NGC1399 to most ofthose of neighboring galaxies within $\sim 0.6^{\circ}$ ($\sim 210$ kpc) alongthe W-E direction. The asymmetric density structure suggests that the galaxiesin the core of the Fornax cluster experienced a lively history of interactionsthat have left a clear imprint on the spatial distribution of GCs. The extendedcentral dominant structure is more prominent in the distribution of blue GCs,while red GCs show density enhancements that are more centrally concentrated onthe host galaxies. We propose that the relatively small-scale densitystructures in the red GCs are caused by galaxy-galaxy interactions, while theextensive spatial distribution of blue GCs is due to stripping of GCs from thehalos of core massive galaxies by the Fornax gravitational potential. Ourinvestigations is based on density maps of candidate GCs extracted from themulti-band VLT Survey Telescope (VST) survey of Fornax (FDS), identified in athree-dimensional color space and further selected based on their $g$-bandmagnitude and morphology.