Abstract: One of the primary science goals of the Rubin Observatory is to elucidate the formation and evolution of the Milky Way through its extensive datasets of resolved stellar populations. A critical aspect of this research is to understand the structure and dynamics of the Milky Way’s satellites. We present a precise structural analysis of the bar of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the Milky Way’s largest satellite galaxy, using resolved stellar populations from Gaia DR3. To address incompleteness caused by severe stellar crowding in the LMC’s center, we developed an innovative method utilizing the Gaia BP-RP color excess for completeness correction. Our measurements are compared with numerical simulations, providing insights into the interaction history between the LMC and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). This study holds significant potential to be extended to older (and thus fainter) stellar populations with future Rubin observations.
For details, please take a look at the attached poster. If you have any questions, contact Himansh Rathore (himansh@arizona.edu) or talk to @galaxyumi331 or @knutago in person during the RCW.
RRB_poster.pdf (867.5 KB)