The Kinematics of the Inner Regions of the Magellanic Clouds

• Applicant: Professorin Maria-Rosa Cioni, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Astrophysics and Astronomy
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 543919886

The inner parts of galaxies are among the most interesting and difficult places to study because they display the strongest gravitational potential and may: harbor dense stellar systems, contain gas and dust, and host a supermassive black hole. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are our nearest pair of dwarf irregular galaxies and locating their gravitational centres is not trivial due to their mutual dynamical interaction and their interaction with the Milky Way. This project is about characterizing stellar populations at the centres of the Magellanic Clouds to quantify the kinematical signatures imprinted by mass distributions associated to the structures of the galaxies. We expect, e.g., to determine the location of a tentative black hole at the centre of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the streamlining motion away from the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). Several multi-wavelength imaging surveys have produced data to unravel properties of the Magellanic Clouds, their star formation history, three-dimensional structure, rotational pattern, tidal tails, and associate satellites. Despite major progress in characterizing the outer regions of the Magellanic Clouds, our capabilities deteriorate in the inner regions due to the high stellar densities. This project aims to capitalise on the VISTA (Visual and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy) survey of the Magellanic Clouds system by analysing deeper, higher spatial resolution, and high-quality multi-epoch near-infrared images that probe the stellar content and kinematics of the central 1.5 square degrees of the LMC and SMC. VISTA-based tangential motions combined with line-of-sight velocity information obtained from the 4MOST (4-metre Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope) facility, to begin in 2024, will allow us to reconstruct the three-dimensional velocity pattern for stellar populations of different median ages. Simple analytical models will be used to interpret the resulting velocity maps and associate dynamical structures with the morphological evolution of the galaxies. Furthermore, the advent of Gaia data release #4, including the products of Sky Mapper images of dense fields, will significantly improve both the homogeneity and completeness of the analysis. It may also be possible to explore the kinematic signature of stellar populations of different metallicities and their possible links to the history of interaction and merging of the Magellanic Clouds.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants