A 10 kpc stellar substructure at the edge of the Large Magellanic Cloud: perturbed outer disk or evidence for tidal stripping?

Understand

We report the discovery of a substantial stellar overdensity in the periphery of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), found using public imaging from the first year of the Dark Energy Survey.

• The structure appears to emanate from the edge of the outer LMC disk at a radius $\approx 13.5$ degrees due north of its centre, and stretches more than $10$ kpc towards the east.
• It is roughly $1.5$ kpc wide and has an integrated $V$-band luminosity of at least $M_V = -7.4$.
• The stellar populations in the feature are indistinguishable from those in the outer LMC disk.