Hubble Tarantula Treasury Project. III. Photometric Catalog and Resulting Constraints on the Progression of Star Formation in the 30 Doradus Region

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive photometric catalog of over 800,000 sources in 30 Doradus, providing insights into star formation progression and feedback effects using multi-wavelength Hubble observations.

Contribution

It offers the first extensive, high-resolution astro-photometric catalog of 30 Doradus, enabling detailed analysis of stellar populations and star formation history.

Findings

Identification of intermediate and low-mass pre-main sequence stars

Evidence of stellar feedback influencing star formation

Spatial distribution and age gradients of stars in 30 Doradus

Abstract

We present and describe the astro-photometric catalog of more than 800,000 sources found in the Hubble Tarantula Treasury Project (HTTP). HTTP is a Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Treasury program designed to image the entire 30 Doradus region down to the sub-solar (~0.5 solar masses) mass regime using the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). We observed 30 Doradus in the near ultraviolet (F275W, F336W), optical (F555W, F658N, F775W), and near infrared (F110W, F160W) wavelengths. The stellar photometry was measured using point-spread function (PSF) fitting across all the bands simultaneously. The relative astrometric accuracy of the catalog is 0.4 mas. The astro-photometric catalog, results from artificial star experiments and the mosaics for all the filters are available for download. Color-magnitude diagrams are presented showing the spatial distributions and ages of stars within 30 Dor as well as in the surrounding fields. HTTP provides the first rich and statistically significant sample of intermediate and low mass pre-main sequence candidates and allows us to trace how star formation has been developing through the region. The depth and high spatial resolution of our analysis highlight the dual role of stellar feedback in quenching and triggering star formation on the giant HII region scale. Our results are consistent with stellar sub-clustering in a partially filled gaseous nebula that is offset towards our side of the Large Magellanic Cloud.