On the dynamics of the Small Magellanic Cloud through high-resolution ASKAP H i observations

Abstract:

We use new high-resolution H i data from the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder to investigate the dynamics of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). We model the H i gas component as a rotating disc of non-negligible angular size, moving into the plane of the sky, and undergoing nutation/precession motions. We derive a high-resolution (∼10 pc) rotation curve of the SMC out to . After correcting for asymmetric drift, the circular velocity slowly rises to a maximum value of at and possibly flattens outwards. In spite of the SMC undergoing strong gravitational interactions with its neighbours, its H i rotation curve is akin to that of many isolated gas-rich dwarf galaxies. We decompose the rotation curve and explore different dynamical models to deal with the unknown 3D shape of the mass components (gas, stars, and dark matter). We find that, for reasonable mass-to-light ratios, a …

Año de publicación:

2019

Keywords:

Fuente:

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