The first 1.1 mm continuum survey toward the Small Magellanic Cloud ( SMC ) was performed using the AzTEC instrument installed on the ASTE 10-m telescope .
This survey covered 4.5 deg ^ { 2 } of the SMC with 1 \sigma noise levels of 5–12 mJy beam ^ { -1 } , and 44 extended objects were identified .
The 1.1 mm extended emission has good spatial correlation with Herschel 160 \micron , indicating that the origin of the 1.1 mm extended emission is thermal emission from a cold dust component .
The 1.1 mm objects show dust temperatures of 17–45 K and gas masses of 4 \times 10 ^ { 3 } – 3 \times 10 ^ { 5 } ~ { } M _ { \sun } , assuming single-temperature thermal emission from the cold dust with an emissivity index , \beta , of 1.2 and a gas-to-dust ratio of 1000 .
These physical properties are very similar to those of giant molecular clouds ( GMCs ) in our galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud .
The 1.1 mm objects also displayed good spatial correlation with the Spitzer 24 \micron and CO emission , suggesting that the 1.1 mm objects trace the dense gas regions as sites of massive star formation .
The dust temperature of the 1.1 mm objects also demonstrated good correlation with the 24 \micron flux connected to massive star formation .
This supports the hypothesis that the heating source of the cold dust is mainly local star-formation activity in the 1.1 mm objects .
The classification of the 1.1 mm objects based on the existence of star-formation activity reveals the differences in the dust temperature , gas mass , and radius , which reflects the evolution sequence of GMCs .