YJKs light curves of SMC Classical Cepheids

The VISTA near-infrared YJKs survey of the Magellanic System (VMC) is collecting deep Ks-band time-series photometry of pulsating stars hosted by the two Magellanic Clouds and their connecting bridge. Here, we present Y, J, Ks light curves for a sample of 717 Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) Classical Cepheids (CCs). These data, complemented with our previous results and V magnitude from literature, allowed us to construct a variety of period-luminosity and period-Wesenheit relationships, valid for Fundamental, First and Second Overtone pulsators. These relations provide accurate individual distances to CCs in the SMC over an area of more than 40 deg^2^. Adopting literature relations, we estimated ages and metallicities for the majority of the investigated pulsators, finding that (i) the age distribution is bimodal, with two peaks at 120+/-10 and 220+/-10Myr; (i) the more metal-rich CCs appear to be located closer to the centre of the galaxy. Our results show that the three-dimensional distribution of the CCs in the SMC is not planar but heavily elongated for more than 25-30kpc approximately in the east/north-east towards south-west direction. The young and old CCs in the SMC show a different geometric distribution. Our data support the current theoretical scenario predicting a close encounter or a direct collision between the Clouds some 200Myr ago and confirm the presence of a Counter-Bridge predicted by some models. The high-precision three-dimensional distribution of young stars presented in this paper provides a new test bed for future models exploring the formation and evolution of the Magellanic System.

Identifier
Source https://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/lp/custom/CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/472/808
Related Identifier https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/MNRAS/472/808
Related Identifier http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/MNRAS/472/808
Metadata Access http://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/pmh/pubreg.xml?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_b2find&identifier=ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/472/808
Provenance
Creator Ripepi V.; Cioni M.-R.L.; Moretti M.I.; Marconi M.; Bekki K.,Clementini G.; De Grijs R.; Emerson J.; Groenewegen M.A.T.; Ivanov V.D.,Molinaro R.; Muraveva T.; Oliveira J.M.; Piatti A.E.; Subramanian S.,Van Loon J.T.
Publisher CDS
Publication Year 2020
Rights https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.html
OpenAccess true
Contact CDS support team <cds-question(at)unistra.fr>
Representation
Resource Type Dataset; AstroObjects
Discipline Astrophysics and Astronomy; Natural Sciences; Observational Astronomy; Physics; Stellar Astronomy