Intermediate-mass stripped stars in the Magellanic Clouds: Forward modeling the observed population discovered via UV excess Blomberg, Lisa El-Badry, Kareem Ludwig, Bethany Drout, Maria R. Götberg, Ylva Louise Linsdotter ; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6960-6911 ddc:520 Stripped stars are hot, helium-rich stars formed when binary interactions remove a star’s hydrogen envelope. While low-mass (≲1 M⊙) and high-mass (≳8 M⊙) stripped stars are well studied as hot subdwarfs and Wolf–Rayet stars, their intermediate-mass counterparts (1–8 M⊙) have only recently been discovered. The Stripped-Star Ultraviolet Magellanic Cloud Survey (SUMS) identified UV-excess sources (i.e., sources lying blueward of the main sequence) in the Magellanic Clouds using Swift-UVOT photometry and selected 820 photometric stripped-star candidates. However, the completeness and purity of this sample remain poorly understood. We forward model the population of stripped stars in the Magellanic Clouds using a binary population synthesis model combined with spatially resolved star formation histories and simulated UV photometry. To assess survey sensitivity, we inject simulated sources into real Swift-UVOT images and reproduce the SUMS selection process, including crowding, extinction, and photometric quality cuts. For the SMC and LMC, we respectively recover 31% and 15% of sources with intrinsic UV excess, and 11% and 7% of all stripped stars. The rest are missed due to dilution by luminous companions, crowding, high extinction, and limited survey coverage. The observed population is biased toward systems with low-mass companions formed by common envelope evolution and systems with compact object companions. We predict contamination of the observed stripped-star candidates by main-sequence stars with spurious UV excess due to crowding and provide guidelines for selecting higher-purity subsamples. Our population synthesis model matches the number and properties of observed stripped star candidates with masses of (2–5) M⊙ well. It underpredicts the number of lower- and higher-mass candidates, perhaps due to contamination. IOP Publishing 2026 info:eu-repo/semantics/article doc-type:Article Article http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_2df8fbb1 https://research-explorer.ista.ac.at/record/23053 https://research-explorer.ista.ac.at/download/23053/23102 Blomberg L, El-Badry K, Ludwig B, Drout MR, Götberg YLL. Intermediate-mass stripped stars in the Magellanic Clouds: Forward modeling the observed population discovered via UV excess. <i>Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific</i>. 2026;138(2). doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1088/1538-3873/ae3a19">10.1088/1538-3873/ae3a19</a> eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1088/1538-3873/ae3a19 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/issn/0004-6280 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/e-issn/1538-3873 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/arxiv/2510.18965 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess