The kinematics of Small Magellanic Cloud star clusters. (arXiv:2104.03750v2 [astro-ph.GA] UPDATED)
<a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Piatti_A/0/1/0/all/0/1">Andrés E. Piatti</a>
We report results of proper motions of 25 known Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC)
clusters (ages ~ 1 – 10 Gyr old) derived from Gaia EDR3 data sets. When these
mean proper motions are gathered with existent radial velocity measurements to
compose the clusters’ velocity vectors, we found the parameter values of a
rotation disk that best resemble their observed motions, namely: central
coordinates and distance, inclination and position angle of the line-of-node,
proper motion in right ascension and declination and systemic velocity,
rotation velocity and velocity dispersion. The SMC cluster rotation disk seems
to be at some level kinematically synchronized with the rotation of field red
giants recently modeled using DR2 data sets. Such a rotation disk is seen in
the sky as a tilted edge-on disk, with a velocity dispersion perpendicular to
it twice as big as that in the plane of the disk. Because the direction
perpendicular to the disk is nearly aligned with the Magellanic Bridge, we
interpret the larger velocity dispersion as a consequence of the SMC velocity
stretching caused by the tidal interaction with the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Rotation alone would not seem sufficient to explain the observed kinematic
behaviors in the SMC.
We report results of proper motions of 25 known Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC)
clusters (ages ~ 1 – 10 Gyr old) derived from Gaia EDR3 data sets. When these
mean proper motions are gathered with existent radial velocity measurements to
compose the clusters’ velocity vectors, we found the parameter values of a
rotation disk that best resemble their observed motions, namely: central
coordinates and distance, inclination and position angle of the line-of-node,
proper motion in right ascension and declination and systemic velocity,
rotation velocity and velocity dispersion. The SMC cluster rotation disk seems
to be at some level kinematically synchronized with the rotation of field red
giants recently modeled using DR2 data sets. Such a rotation disk is seen in
the sky as a tilted edge-on disk, with a velocity dispersion perpendicular to
it twice as big as that in the plane of the disk. Because the direction
perpendicular to the disk is nearly aligned with the Magellanic Bridge, we
interpret the larger velocity dispersion as a consequence of the SMC velocity
stretching caused by the tidal interaction with the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Rotation alone would not seem sufficient to explain the observed kinematic
behaviors in the SMC.
http://arxiv.org/icons/sfx.gif
