AI 中文总结
本研究利用VISTA望远镜对麦哲伦云内部开展深层近红外观测，获取高质量星表，为研究麦哲伦云动力学演化及恒星形成等提供重要数据支撑。
AI 中文摘要
星系的中心区域因恒星、气体和尘埃密度极高，对观测者构成挑战。大麦哲伦云（LMC）拥有致密的恒星棒，而小麦哲伦云（SMC）拥有致密的核心，即使是最灵敏的地面和空间大视场单星巡天也未能观测到这些结构。本研究描述了利用VISTA望远镜获得的麦哲伦云内部区域的深层成像观测，旨在分辨出比红团星更暗的恒星——这些恒星因拥挤在以往观测中被遗漏，并量化与星系恒星形成、运动学和结构相关的特征。这些研究将帮助我们明确LMC与SMC之间的动力学相互作用，以及麦哲伦云与银河系的相互作用如何影响引力束缚最强的区域。在极佳的天气条件下，利用J和Ks近红外滤光片获取了多张图像，数据通过VDFS进行处理，该工具为单个观测和深层拼接的组合观测提供单滤光片及波段合并的校准图像和星表，以及相关置信度图。在中心1.77平方度的区域内，探测到约100万个源，仅存在少量质量问题，每个滤光片约有40个历元。这些源的空间覆盖范围比VMC巡天中的源更连续，VMC巡天对每个星系的覆盖是通过重叠两个VISTA拼接实现的。本研究提供的星表包含用于选择独特高质量探测的属性，我们给出了正在进行的科学应用实例。这些数据是其他波长深层成像观测的有价值补充信息，还为自行和测光变异性研究提供了额外历元，将时间基线延长至11年，并为光谱观测提供了目标。
英文摘要
The central regions of galaxies challenge observers with a high density of stars, gas and dust. The LMC hosts a dense stellar bar whereas the SMC hosts a dense core, which have eluded even the most sensitive large-scale wide-field surveys of individual stars from the ground and from space. This work describes deep imaging observations obtained with VISTA of the inner regions of the Clouds. They were obtained to resolve stars fainter than the red clump, that due to crowding were missed in previous observations, and to quantify features associated with the star formation, kinematics and structure of the galaxies. These studies will allow us to establish how the dynamical interactions between the LMC and the SMC, and the interaction between the Clouds and the Milky Way have influenced the most gravitationally bound regions. Multiple near-infrared images were obtained in the J and Ks filters during excellent weather conditions. The data were reduced using the VDFS which provides single-filter and band-merged calibrated images and catalogues, with associated confidence maps, for individual observations and combined observations for deep tiles. Approximately one million sources, with only minor quality issues and about 40 epochs per filter, are detected in the central 1.77 sq. deg. They provide a more contiguous spatial area coverage than sources in the VMC survey, which covers the same regions by overlapping two VISTA tiles per galaxy. The catalogues, which are made available with this work, contain attributes to select unique good quality detections for which we provide examples of ongoing scientific applications. These data represent valuable complementary information to deep imaging observations at other wavelengths and provide additional epochs for proper motion and photometric variability studies extending the time baseline to 11 yr, as well as targets for spectroscopic observations.
Comments18 pages, 20 figures, accepted for publication in A&A
