Projeto Observacional para 2015B - SO2015B-015

Autor: Sidcley Pereira Gomes
Instituição: UFRJ
e-mail: sidcley@astro.ufrj.br

Co-autores:
Denise R. Gonçalves
Stavros Akras

Título: Searching for symbiotic stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud via deep Halpha plus SLOAN images

Resumo: Symbiotic systems (SySt) are interacting binary stars containing a cold red giant and, in most cases, a hot white dwarf, accreting from the giant. SySt are among the contenders as Type Ia SN progenitors. However the confirmation of this possibility requires making a census of SySt in order to unveil the relation between the SN rate in a given galaxy and the number of SySt at present-time. Such a census was never carried out in the nearby dwarf galaxies, not even in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). We estimate that the SMC should host at least 465 SySt, although only 8 are known so far. Our aim is to search for SySt in the SMC by obtaining deep images in Halpha and in the SLOAN i' and r' filters in order to identify SySt candidates and later use MOS spectroscopy to confirm the nature of the candidates. It is known that the colour-colour diagrams build with these filters are efficient to search for symbiotics, only in the outer - not crowded - parts of the galaxies. Therefore this project will visit only the external parts of the SMC, with as much as possible Goodman FoV.