The Large Magellanic Cloud’s ∼30 kpc Bow Shock and Its Impact on the Circumgalactic Medium

Abstract

The interaction between the supersonic motion of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the circumgalactic medium (CGM) is expected to result in a bow shock that leads the LMC’s gaseous disk. In this letter, we use hydrodynamic simulations of the LMC’s recent infall to predict the extent of this shock and its effect on the Milky Way’s (MW) CGM. The simulations clearly predict the existence of an asymmetric shock with a present-day standoff radius of ∼6.7 kpc and a transverse diameter of ∼30 kpc. Over the past 500 Myr, ∼8% of the MW’s CGM in the southern hemisphere should have interacted with the shock front. This interaction may have had the effect of smoothing over inhomogeneities and increasing mixing in the MW CGM. We find observational evidence of the existence of the bow shock in recent Hα maps of the LMC, providing a potential explanation for the envelope of ionized gas surrounding the LMC. Furthermore, the interaction of the bow shock with the MW CGM may also explain the observations of ionized gas surrounding the Magellanic Stream. Using recent orbital histories of MW satellites, we find that many satellites have likely interacted with the LMC shock. Additionally, the dwarf galaxy Ret2 is currently sitting inside the shock, which may impact the interpretation of the reported gamma-ray excess in Ret2. This work highlights how bow shocks associated with infalling satellites are an underexplored yet potentially very important dynamical mixing process in the circumgalactic and intracluster media. © 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.