Tidally stripped halo stars from the Large Magellanic Cloud in the Galactic North

Abstract

We examine whether the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is currently losing its stellar halo to Milky Way (MW) tides. We present a live N-body model for the ongoing MW-LMC interaction that predicts a prominent stream of stars tidally stripped from the progenitor LMC. We use this model to define a strategy to search for stripped material in kinematic space. Of the available stellar tracers, we conclude that samples of RR Lyrae stars provide the highest density of kinematic tracers at present. Using a sample of RR Lyrae stars with Gaia EDR3 astrometry, we show that the LMC stellar halo in the Southern Galactic hemisphere extends at least out to ∼30° from the galaxy centre. In addition, several leading arm candidates are found in the Northern hemisphere as far above the disc plane as b = +34° (at 68° from the LMC).