The Molecular Ridge Close to 30 Doradus in the Large Magellanic Cloud

TL;DR

This study maps the molecular gas in the Large Magellanic Cloud, revealing a complex, clumpy molecular ridge influenced by shocks, shear, and stellar feedback, with implications for cloud formation and star formation processes.

Contribution

It provides detailed observations of the molecular ridge near 30 Doradus, highlighting its fragmented structure and the role of environmental forces in molecular cloud formation.

Findings

The molecular ridge consists of many smaller clumps with shared formation history.

Shocks and shearing forces likely trigger molecular cloud formation.

Dense gas correlates with star formation and feedback structures.

Abstract

With the ATNF Mopra telescope we are performing a survey in the 12CO(1-0) line to map the molecular gas in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). For some regions we also obtained interferometric maps of the high density gas tracers HCO+ and HCN with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). Here we discuss the properties of the elongated molecular complex that stretches about 2 kpc southward from 30 Doradus. Our data suggests that the complex, which we refer to as the ``molecular ridge,'' is not a coherent feature but consists of many smaller clumps that share the same formation history. Likely molecular cloud formation triggers are shocks and shearing forces that are present in the surrounding south-eastern HI overdensity region, a region influenced by strong ram pressure and tidal forces. The molecular ridge is at the western edge of the the overdensity region where a bifurcated velocity structure transitions into a single disk velocity component. We find that the 12CO(1-0) and HI emission peaks in the molecular ridge are typically near each other but never coincide. A likely explanation is the conversion of warmer, low-opacity HI to colder, high-opacity HI from which H2 subsequently forms. On smaller scales, we find that very dense molecular gas, as traced by interferometric HCO+ and HCN maps, is associated with star formation along shocked filaments and with rims of expanding shell-like structures, both created by feedback from massive stars.