Exploring Magellanic Interactions Through Bridge and Small Magellanic Cloud Dynamics

In recent years, our view of the Magellanic Clouds has shifted due to a rapidly expanding pool of data. Hubble Space Telescope-measured proper motions (PMs) of the Clouds revealed their first infall and the timescale on which they most recently interacted. With the advent of Gaia however, a new avenue of exploration has opened into the history of the Clouds. Here we present measurements of the PMs in Magellanic stars from Gaia across the Magellanic Bridge compared against simulations of different interaction histories of the Clouds, revealing a strong preference for a recent and direct last interaction. We additionally present an analysis of the internal dynamics of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). In particular, we show our search for rotation within the stellar populations of the SMC, hinted at by HI studies and stellar radial velocity measurements. In combination with simulations of interactions between the Clouds, we attempt to improve our physical understanding and intuition for the complex dynamic scenario that is the Magellanic Clouds.