Deep VLT photometry of the faint stellar system in the Large Magellanic Cloud periphery YMCA-1

Abstract: We present FORS2@VLT follow-up photometry of YMCA-1, a recently discovered stellar system located 13\degr~from the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) center. The deep color-magnitude diagram (CMD) reveals a well-defined main sequence (MS) and a handful of stars in the post-MS evolutionary phases. We analyse the YMCA-1 CMD by means of the automated isochrone matching package {\tt ASteCA} and model its radial density profile with a Plummer function. We find that YMCA-1 is an old ($11.7^{+1.7}_{-1.3}$~Gyr), metal-intermediate ([Fe/H] $\simeq -1.12^{+0.21}_{-0.13}$~dex), compact (r${\rm h} = 3.5 \pm 0.5$ pc), low-mass (M $= 10^{2.45 \pm 0.02} M{\odot}$) and low-luminosity (M$V = -0.47 \pm 0.57$~mag) stellar system. The estimated distance modulus ($\mu_0 = 18.72^{+0.15}{-0.17}$~mag), corresponding to about 55~kpc, suggests that YMCA-1 is associated to the LMC, but we cannot discard the scenario in which it is a Milky Way satellite. The structural parameters of YMCA-1 are remarkably different compared with those of the 15 known old LMC globular clusters. In particular, it resides in a transition region of the M$_V$-r$_h$ plane, in between the ultra-faint dwarf galaxies and the classical old clusters, and close to SMASH-1, another faint stellar system recently discovered in the LMC surroundings.