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| Paper: |
A Stellar Heist in the Magellanic Clouds |
| Volume: |
491, Fifty Years of Wide Field Studies in the Southern Hemisphere: Resolved Stellar Populations in the Galactic Bulge and the Magellanic Clouds |
| Page: |
257 |
| Authors: |
Olsen, K. A. G.; Blum, R. D.; Smart, B.; Zaritsky, D.; Boyer, M. L.; Gordon, K. D.; Massey, P. |
| Abstract: |
We present an analysis of the stellar kinematics of the Large
Magellanic Cloud, based on several thousand spectra obtained with
Hydra-CTIO of massive red supergiants, oxygen-rich and carbon-rich
AGB stars, and other giants. We have used the stellar velocities to
measure the rotation curve of the LMC, which we find to have an
amplitude of 87±5 km s-1, a value that is in agreement with all of the
available kinematic tracers. Our data also reveal a population of
outliers, comprising ∼5% of the sample, that have line-of-sight
velocities that apparently oppose the sense of rotation of the LMC
disk. We show that these outliers likely represent stars that were
captured by the LMC from the SMC. The capture of these SMC stars and
gas by the LMC may have been the trigger for the intense star
formation that we now see in 30 Doradus, the most active star
formation complex in the nearby universe, and may explain the detection
of LMC microlensing events found by the MACHO and OGLE projects. |
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