Gemma Bagheri, Maria-Rosa Cioni, Ralf Napiwotzki
The Magellanic system comprises the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), and the less frequently observed Magellanic Bridge and Magellanic Stream. The Bridge is traced by neutral gas and has an observed stellar component, while the Stream consists of gas only, with no observed stellar counterpart to date.This study uses previously unexplored infrared observations from the 2MASS and DENIS surveys and optical observations from the SuperCOSMOS survey to investigate the stellar content of the Magellanic Bridge.Catalogues were created of the 2MASS, DENIS and SuperCOSMOS surveys in the direction of the Bridge and density maps, colour-magnitude and two colour diagrams were analysed. A study was also carried out on removing the Galactic foreground population in the direction of the Magellanic Bridge which was an important consideration due to the low stellar density within the Bridge.This study finds that the stellar density varies in the Bridge region with a north--south division, and that the Magellanic Bridge comprises of an old stellar population in addition to the younger population already known.The formation of the Magellanic Bridge is likely to have occurred from a tidal event between the LMC and SMC drawing most of the material into it from the SMC. An older population in the Bridge indicates that a stellar content was drawn in during its formation together with a gas component. Specific attention was given to the removal of the Galactic foreground due to the low stellar density within the Bridge.
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http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.0216
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