The Mysterious bar of the Large Magellanic Cloud: What is it?

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution mapping of red clump stars to determine that the Large Magellanic Cloud's bar is not a separate vertical structure but part of its disk, showing no significant vertical offset.

Contribution

The paper provides the first high-resolution map indicating the LMC bar is embedded in the disk, challenging previous notions of it being a distinct structure.

Findings

The LMC bar is aligned with the disk plane within 0.02 mag.

No significant vertical offset of the bar from the disk.

Detected warps or population variations in the outer regions.

Abstract

The bar of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is one of the prominent, but controversial feature regarding its location with respect to the disk of the LMC. In order to study the relative location of the bar with respect to the disk, we present the high resolution map of the structure across the LMC. We used the reddening corrected mean magnitudes ($I_0$) of red clump (RC) stars from the OGLE III catalogue to map the relative variation in distance (vertical structure) or variation in RC population across the LMC. The bar does not appear as an identifiable vertical feature in the map, as there is no difference in $I_0$ values between the bar and the disk regions. We conclude that the LMC bar is very much part of the disk, located in the plane of the disk (within 0.02 mag) and it is not a separate component. We identify warps or variation in RC population with increase in radial distance. %The structure map also suggests a %warp or a different RC population in the eastern part of the LMC disk.