Revealing the Chemical Structure of the Magellanic Clouds with APOGEE. III. Abundance Gradients of the Small Magellanic Cloud

We determine radial- and age-abundance gradients of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) using spectra of 2,062 red giant branch (RGB) field stars observed by SDSS-IV / APOGEE-2S. With coverage out to $\sim$9 kpc in the SMC, these data taken with the high resolution ($R \sim 22,500$) APOGEE $H$-band spectrograph afford the opportunity to measure extensive radial gradients for as many as 24 abundance ratios. The SMC is found to have an overall metallicity gradient of $-$0.0546 $\pm$ 0.0043 dex/kpc. Ages are calculated for every star to explore the evolution of the different abundance gradients. As a function of age, many of the gradients show a feature 3.66--5.58 Gyr ago, which is especially prominent in the [X/H] gradients. Initially many gradients flatten until about $\sim$5.58 Gyr ago, but then steepen in more recent times. We previously detected similar evolutionary patterns in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) which are attributed to a recent interaction between the LMC and SMC. It is inferred that the feature in the SMC gradients was caused by the same interaction. The age-[X/Fe] trends, which track average [X/Fe] over time, are flat, demonstrating a slow enrichment history for the SMC. When comparing the SMC gradients to the LMC and MW, normalized to disk scale length ($R_\text{d}$), the [X/Fe] and [X/Mg] gradients are similar, but there is a dichotomy between the dwarfs and the Milky Way (MW) for the [X/H] gradients. The median MW [X/H] gradient around $-$0.125 dex/$R_\text{d}$ whilst the Clouds have gradients of about $-$0.075 dex/$R_\text{d}$.