@article{MuravevaPalmerClementinietal.2015,
  author    = {Muraveva, Tatiana and Palmer, Max and Clementini, Gisella and Luri, Xavier and Cioni, Maria-Rosa L. and Moretti, Maria Ida and Marconi, Marcella and Ripepi, Vincenzo and Rubele, Stefano},
  title     = {New near-infrared period-luminosity-metallicity relations for RR lyrae stars and the outlock for GAIA},
  series = {The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics},
  volume    = {807},
  journal   = {The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics},
  number    = {2},
  publisher = {IOP Publ. Ltd.},
  address   = {Bristol},
  issn      = {0004-637X},
  doi       = {10.1088/0004-637X/807/2/127},
  pages     = {17},
  year      = {2015},
  abstract  = {We present results of the analysis of 70 RR Lyrae stars located in the bar of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Combining the spectroscopically determined metallicity of these stars from the literature with precise periods from the OGLE III catalog and multi-epoch K-s photometry from the VISTA survey of the Magellanic Clouds system, we derive a new near-infrared period-luminosity-metallicity (PLKsZ) relation for RR Lyrae variables. In order to fit the relation we use a fitting method developed specifically for this study. The zero-point of the relation is estimated two different ways: by assuming the value of the distance to the LMC and by using Hubble Space Telescope parallaxes of five RR Lyrae stars in the Milky Way (MW). The difference in distance moduli derived by applying these two approaches is similar to 0.2 mag. To investigate this point further we derive the PL(Ks)Z relation based on 23 MW RR Lyrae stars that had been analyzed in Baade-Wesselink studies. We compared the derived PL(Ks)Z relations for RR Lyrae stars in the MW and LMC. Slopes and zero-points are different, but still consistent within the errors. The shallow slope of the metallicity term is confirmed by both LMC and MW variables. The astrometric space mission Gaia is expected to provide a huge contribution to the determination of the RR Lyrae PL(Ks)Z relation; however, calculating an absolute magnitude from the trigonometric parallax of each star and fitting a PL(Ks)Z relation directly to period and absolute magnitude leads to biased results. We present a tool to achieve an unbiased solution by modeling the data and inferring the slope and zero-point of the relation via statistical methods.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{PiattideGrijsRipepietal.2015,
  author    = {Piatti, Andres E. and de Grijs, Richard and Ripepi, Vincenzo and Ivanov, Valentin D. and Cioni, Maria-Rosa L. and Marconi, Marcella and Rubele, Stefano and Bekki, Kenji and For, Bi-Qing},
  title     = {The VMC survey - XVI. Spatial variation of the cluster formation activity in the innermost regions of the Large Magellanic Cloud},
  series = {Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
  volume    = {454},
  journal   = {Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {Oxford Univ. Press},
  address   = {Oxford},
  issn      = {0035-8711},
  doi       = {10.1093/mnras/stv2054},
  pages     = {839 -- 848},
  year      = {2015},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{PiattiIvanovRubeleetal.2016,
  author    = {Piatti, Andres E. and Ivanov, Valentin D. and Rubele, Stefano and Marconi, Marcella and Ripepi, Vincenzo and Cioni, Maria-Rosa L. and Oliveira, Joana M. and Bekki, Kenji},
  title     = {The VMC Survey - XXI. New star cluster candidates discovered from infrared photometry in the Small Magellanic Cloud},
  series = {Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
  volume    = {460},
  journal   = {Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
  publisher = {Oxford Univ. Press},
  address   = {Oxford},
  issn      = {0035-8711},
  doi       = {10.1093/mnras/stw1000},
  pages     = {383 -- 395},
  year      = {2016},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{SubramanianRubeleSunetal.2017,
  author    = {Subramanian, Smitha and Rubele, Stefano and Sun, Ning-Chen and Girardi, Leo and de Grijs, Richard and van Loon, Jacco Th. and Cioni, Maria-Rosa L. and Piatti, Andres E. and Bekki, Kenji and Emerson, Jim and Ivanov, Valentin D. and Kerber, Leandro and Marconi, Marcella and Ripepi, Vincenzo and Tatton, Benjamin L.},
  title     = {The VMC Survey - XXIV. Signatures of tidally stripped stellar populations from the inner Small Magellanic Cloud},
  series = {Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
  volume    = {467},
  journal   = {Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
  publisher = {Oxford Univ. Press},
  address   = {Oxford},
  issn      = {0035-8711},
  doi       = {10.1093/mnras/stx205},
  pages     = {2980 -- 2995},
  year      = {2017},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{ZhangLideGrijsetal.2015,
  author    = {Zhang, Chaoli and Li, Chengyuan and de Grijs, Richard and Bekki, Kenji and Deng, Licai and Zaggia, Simone and Rubele, Stefano and Piatti, Andres E. and Cioni, Maria-Rosa L. and Emerson, Jim and For, Bi-Qing and Ripepi, Vincenzo and Marconi, Marcella and Ivanov, Valentin D. and Chen, Li},
  title     = {The vmc survey. XVIII. radial dependence of the Low-Mass, 0.55-0.82M(circle dot) stellar mass function in the galactic globular cluster 47 tucanae},
  series = {The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics},
  volume    = {815},
  journal   = {The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics},
  number    = {2},
  publisher = {IOP Publ. Ltd.},
  address   = {Bristol},
  issn      = {0004-637X},
  doi       = {10.1088/0004-637X/815/2/95},
  pages     = {9},
  year      = {2015},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{SundeGrijsSubramanianetal.2017,
  author    = {Sun, Ning-Chen and de Grijs, Richard and Subramanian, Smitha and Bekki, Kenji and Bell, Cameron P. M. and Cioni, Maria-Rosa L. and Ivanov, Valentin D. and Marconi, Marcella and Oliveira, Joana M. and Piatti, Andres E. and Ripepi, Vincenzo and Rubele, Stefano and Tatton, Ben L. and van Loon, Jacco Th.},
  title     = {The VMC Survey. XXII. Hierarchical Star Formation in the 30 Doradus-N158-N159-N160 Star-forming Complex},
  series = {The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics},
  volume    = {849},
  journal   = {The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics},
  publisher = {IOP Publ. Ltd.},
  address   = {Bristol},
  issn      = {0004-637X},
  doi       = {10.3847/1538-4357/aa911e},
  pages     = {16},
  year      = {2017},
  abstract  = {Star formation is a hierarchical process, forming young stellar structures of star clusters, associations, and complexes over a wide range of scales. The star-forming complex in the bar region of the Large Magellanic Cloud is investigated with upper main-sequence stars observed by the VISTA Survey of the Magellanic Clouds. The upper main-sequence stars exhibit highly nonuniform distributions. Young stellar structures inside the complex are identified from the stellar density map as density enhancements of different significance levels. We find that these structures are hierarchically organized such that larger, lower-density structures contain one or several smaller, higher-density ones. They follow power-law size and mass distributions, as well as a lognormal surface density distribution. All these results support a scenario of hierarchical star formation regulated by turbulence. The temporal evolution of young stellar structures is explored by using subsamples of upper main-sequence stars with different magnitude and age ranges. While the youngest subsample, with a median age of log(tau/yr) = 7.2, contains the most substructure, progressively older ones are less and less substructured. The oldest subsample, with a median age of log(tau/yr) = 8.0, is almost indistinguishable from a uniform distribution on spatial scales of 30-300. pc, suggesting that the young stellar structures are completely dispersed on a timescale of similar to 100. Myr. These results are consistent with the characteristics of the 30. Doradus complex and the entire Large Magellanic Cloud, suggesting no significant environmental effects. We further point out that the fractal dimension may be method dependent for stellar samples with significant age spreads.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{CioniBekkiGirardietal.2016,
  author    = {Cioni, Maria-Rosa L. and Bekki, Kenji and Girardi, Leo and de Grijs, Richard and Irwin, Mike J. and Ivanov, Valentin D. and Marconi, Marcella and Oliveira, Joana M. and Piatti, Andres E. and Ripepi, Vincenzo and van Loon, Jacco Th.},
  title     = {XVII. Proper motions of the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Milky Way globular cluster 47 Tucanae},
  series = {Physical review : E, Statistical, nonlinear and soft matter physics},
  volume    = {586},
  journal   = {Physical review : E, Statistical, nonlinear and soft matter physics},
  publisher = {EDP Sciences},
  address   = {Les Ulis},
  issn      = {1432-0746},
  doi       = {10.1051/0004-6361/201527004},
  pages     = {67 -- 75},
  year      = {2016},
  abstract  = {Aims. In this study we use multi-epoch near-infrared observations from the VISTA survey of the Magellanic Cloud system (VMC) to measure the proper motions of different stellar populations in a tile of 1.5 deg2 in size in the direction of the Galactic globular cluster 47 Tuc. We obtain the proper motion of the cluster itself, of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), and of the field Milky Way stars. Methods. Stars of the three main stellar components are selected according to their spatial distributions and their distributions in colour\&\#8722;magnitude diagrams. Their average coordinate displacement is computed from the difference between multiple Ks-band observations for stars as faint as Ks = 19 mag. Proper motions are derived from the slope of the best-fitting line among ten VMC epochs over a time baseline of ~1 yr. Background galaxies are used to calibrate the absolute astrometric reference frame. Results. The resulting absolute proper motion of 47 Tuc is (\&\#956;\&\#945;cos(\&\#948;), \&\#956;\&\#948;) = (+7.26 ± 0.03, \&\#8722;1.25 ± 0.03) mas yr-1. This measurement refers to about 35 000 sources distributed between 10\&\#8242; and 60\&\#8242; from the cluster centre. For the SMC we obtain (\&\#956;\&\#945;cos(\&\#948;), \&\#956;\&\#948;) = (+1.16 ± 0.07, \&\#8722;0.81 ± 0.07) mas yr-1 from about 5250 red clump and red giant branch stars. The absolute proper motion of the Milky Way population in the line of sight (l = 305.9, b = \&\#8722;44.9) of this VISTA tile is (\&\#956;\&\#945;cos(\&\#948;), \&\#956;\&\#948;) = (+10.22 ± 0.14, \&\#8722;1.27 ± 0.12) mas yr-1 and has been calculated from about 4000 sources. Systematic uncertainties associated with the astrometric reference system are 0.18 mas yr-1. Thanks to the proper motion we detect 47 Tuc stars beyond its tidal radius.},
  language  = {en}
}