Towards a comprehensive knowledge of the star cluster population in the
  Small Magellanic Cloud
  The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) has recently been found to harbour more than
two hundred per cent increase of its known cluster population. We provide here
with solid evidence that such an unprecedented number of clusters could be
largely overestimated. On the one hand, the fully-automatic procedure used to
identify such an enormous cluster candidate sample did not recover ~ 50 per
cent, in average, of the known relatively bright clusters located in the SMC
main body. On the other hand, the number of new cluster candidates per time
unit as a function of time results noticeably different to the intrinsic SMC
cluster frequency (CF), which should not be the case if these new detections
were genuine physical systems. We additionally found that the SMC CF varies
spatially, in such a way that it resembles an outside-in process coupled with
the effects of a relatively recent interaction with the Large Magellanic Cloud.
By assuming that clusters and field stars share the same formation history, we
showed for the first time that the cluster dissolution rate also depends on the
position in the galaxy. The cluster dissolution results higher as the
concentration of galaxy mass increases or external tidal forces are present.
