2.5 Gyr N-body simulation of the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds

The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC, respectively) are the largest satellite galaxies of the Milky Way (MW). They have been interacting with each other and the MW over the past few billion years (Gyr). We modeled the interactions over 2.5 Gyr using the N-body code PKDGrav. This simulation includes the MW, LMC, and SMC and snapshots are saved every 20 million years (Myr). Each .ZIP file contains 500 Myr of snapshots. There are two close interactions between the LMC and SMC that occur at 1.26 and 2.06 Gyr into the run of the simulation. The snapshot where the location of the LMC relative to the MW is closest to observed is 2.2 Gyr into the run.
, , # 2.5 Gyr N-body simulation of the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.1vhhmgr82](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.1vhhmgr82)

## Description of the data and file structure

This is a simulation of the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds over 2.5 Gyr.

### Files and variables

#### File: lsmcmodelA0000_0500Myr.zip

**Description:** Snapshot files for every 20 million years from the first 500 million years of the simulation's run. The file names end with a step number, where each step is 5 million years. Each file contains star and dark matter particles, indexed in order Milky Way - LMC - SMC. The Milky Way contains 2.5×10^5^ dark matter particles and 2.4×10^5^ star particles. The LMC contains 2.38×10^6^ dark matter particles and 1.62×10^6^ star particles. The SMC contains 2.9×10^5^ dark matter particles and 2.25×10^5^ star particles. Position values are in units of kpc, velocity values are in units of km s^-1^, mass is in units of 2.32×10^5^ Msol, and gravitational pot..., ,