We first show that a large amount of metal-poor gas is stripped from the Small Magellanic Cloud ( SMC ) and fallen into the Large Magellanic Cloud ( LMC ) during the tidal interaction between the SMC , the LMC , and the Galaxy over the last 2 Gyrs .
We propose that this metal-poor gas can closely be associated with the origin of LMC ’ s young and intermediate-age stars and star clusters with distinctively low-metallicities with [ Fe/H ] < -0.6 .
We numerically investigate whether gas initially in the outer part of the SMC ’ s gas disk can be stripped during the LMC-SMC-Galaxy interaction and consequently can pass through the central region ( R < 7.5 kpc ) of the LMC .
We find that about 0.7 % and 18 % of the SMC ’ s gas can pass through the central region of the LMC about 1.3 Gyr ago and 0.2 Gyr ago , respectively .
The possible mean metallicity of the replenished gas from the SMC to LMC is about [ Fe/H ] = -0.9 to -1.0 for the two interacting phases .
These results imply that the LMC can temporarily replenish gas supplies through the sporadic accretion and infall of metal-poor gas from the SMC .
These furthermore imply that if these gas from the SMC can collide with gas in the LMC to form new stars in the LMC , the metallicities of the stars can be significantly lower than those of stars formed from gas initially within the LMC .