TY - JOUR
T1 - A Catalog of Stellar and Dust Properties for 500,000 Stars in the Southwest Bar of the Small Magellanic Cloud
AU - Yanchulova Merica-Jones, Petia
AU - Gordon, Karl
AU - Sandstrom, Karin
AU - Murray, Claire E.
AU - Clifton Johnson, L.
AU - Dalcanton, Julianne J.
AU - Roman-Duval, Julia
AU - Chastenet, Jeremy
AU - Williams, Benjamin F.
AU - Weisz, Daniel R.
AU - Dolphin, Andrew E.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
PY - 2025/1/1
Y1 - 2025/1/1
N2 - We present a catalog of individual stellar and dust extinction properties along close to 500,000 sight lines in the southwest bar of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The catalog is based on multiband Hubble Space Telescope photometric data spanning near-ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelengths from the Small Magellanic Cloud Investigation of Dust and Gas Evolution survey (SMIDGE) covering a 100 × 200 pc area. We use the probabilistic technique of the Bayesian Extinction And Stellar Tool (BEAST) to model the spectral energy distributions of individual stars in SMIDGE and include the effects of observational uncertainties in the data. We compare BEAST-derived dust extinction properties with tracers of the interstellar medium, such as the emission from the 12CO (2-1) transition (I(CO)), the dust mass surface density (Σdust) from far-IR emission, the H i column density (N(H i)) from the 21 cm transition, and the mass fraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs; q PAH, derived from IR emission). We find that the dust extinction (A(V)) in the SMIDGE field is strongly correlated with Σdust and I(CO), and less so with N(H i) and q PAH, and suggest potential explanations. Our extinction measurements are also sensitive to the presence of the 2175 Å bump in the extinction curve toward UV bright stars. While most do not show evidence for the bump, we identify ∼200 lines of sight that are 2175 Å bump candidates. Furthermore, we find distinct structures in the dust extinction-distance distributions that provide insights into the 3D geometry of the SMC.
AB - We present a catalog of individual stellar and dust extinction properties along close to 500,000 sight lines in the southwest bar of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The catalog is based on multiband Hubble Space Telescope photometric data spanning near-ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelengths from the Small Magellanic Cloud Investigation of Dust and Gas Evolution survey (SMIDGE) covering a 100 × 200 pc area. We use the probabilistic technique of the Bayesian Extinction And Stellar Tool (BEAST) to model the spectral energy distributions of individual stars in SMIDGE and include the effects of observational uncertainties in the data. We compare BEAST-derived dust extinction properties with tracers of the interstellar medium, such as the emission from the 12CO (2-1) transition (I(CO)), the dust mass surface density (Σdust) from far-IR emission, the H i column density (N(H i)) from the 21 cm transition, and the mass fraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs; q PAH, derived from IR emission). We find that the dust extinction (A(V)) in the SMIDGE field is strongly correlated with Σdust and I(CO), and less so with N(H i) and q PAH, and suggest potential explanations. Our extinction measurements are also sensitive to the presence of the 2175 Å bump in the extinction curve toward UV bright stars. While most do not show evidence for the bump, we identify ∼200 lines of sight that are 2175 Å bump candidates. Furthermore, we find distinct structures in the dust extinction-distance distributions that provide insights into the 3D geometry of the SMC.
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U2 - 10.3847/1538-4357/ad8eb7
DO - 10.3847/1538-4357/ad8eb7
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85214693788
SN - 0004-637X
VL - 978
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
IS - 2
M1 - 144
ER -