13 Magellanic Clouds metal-poor stars

The Magellanic Clouds are the most massive of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies and are thought to have evolved in isolation until their recent accretion by the Milky Way. Unlike the Milky Way's less massive satellites, little is known about the Magellanic Clouds' metal-poor stars.

We have used the mid-infrared metal-poor star selection of Schlaufman & Casey and archival data to target nine LMC and four SMC giants for high-resolution Magellan/MIKE spectroscopy. These nine LMC giants with -2.4<~[Fe/H]<~-1.5 and four SMC giants with -2.6<~[Fe/H]<~-2.0 are the most metal-poor stars in the Magellanic Clouds yet subject to a comprehensive abundance analysis. While we find that at constant metallicity these stars are similar to Milky Way stars in their {alpha}, light, and iron-peak elemental abundances, both the LMC and SMC are enhanced relative to the Milky Way in the r-process element europium.