Anomalous extinction towards NGC 1938

TL;DR

This study investigates the unusual extinction properties in a region of the Large Magellanic Cloud, revealing large grains and their impact on stellar observations and galaxy evolution interpretations.

Contribution

It uncovers anomalous extinction with a grey component caused by large grains, linked to supernova activity, affecting stellar and galactic measurements.

Findings

Anomalous extinction with Av/E(B-V)=4.3

Presence of a grey component contributing 30% of extinction

Large grains twice as abundant as in diffuse ISM

Abstract

Intrigued by the extended red-giant clump (RC) stretching across the colour-magnitude diagram of the stars in a 50x50 pc^2 region of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) containing the clusters NGC 1938 and NGC 1939, we have studied the stellar populations to learn about the properties of the interstellar medium (ISM) in this area. The extended RC is caused by a large and uneven amount of extinction across the field. Its slope reveals anomalous extinction properties, with Av/E(B-V)=4.3, indicating the presence of an additional grey component in the optical contributing about 30% of the total extinction in the field and requiring big grains to be about twice as abundant as in the diffuse ISM. This appears to be consistent with the amount of big grains injected into the surrounding ISM by the about 70 SNII explosions estimated to have occurred during the lifetime of the ~120 Myr old NGC 1938. Although this cluster appears today relatively small and would be hard to detect beyond the distance of M 31, with an estimated initial mass of ~4800 Msun NGC 1938 appears to have seriously altered the extinction properties in a wide area. This has important implications for the interpretation of luminosities and masses of star-forming galaxies, both nearby and in the early universe.