SMASHing the Small Magellanic Cloud- star formation history of the ‘shell’ structure

Abstract

I present here the spatially resolved star-formation history (SFH) of a shell-like structure located in northeast part of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). I use the unprecedented deep photometric data (g~24 magnitude) from the Survey of the MAgellanic Stellar History (SMASH) survey utilising the Dark Energy Camera (DECAm) on the NOAO Blanco 4 m Telescope. The SFH is quantitatively obtained using colour-magnitude diagrams (CMD) fitting techniques. I compare the resulting SFH of the shell-like structure to the SFHs of several SMC regions. I discuss the results of such comparison with a focus on whether the recent and high star formation activity in the shell-like structure is correlated with the enhancements of star formation at young ages in the SMC. I will put my results in the context of the tidal interactions between the SMC and its larger companion, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) to shed light on the origins of the shell-like feature.