Complexes of triggered star formation in supergiant shell of Holmberg II

TL;DR

This study reveals that star formation in the supergiant HI shell of Holmberg II occurs in large, complex regions driven by stellar feedback and possibly triggered by shell collisions, with detailed gas and stellar analysis.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of star formation complexes in Holmberg II's supergiant shell, highlighting their size, structure, and the feedback processes involved, which were previously underestimated.

Findings

Star formation occurs in large, unified complexes of several hundred parsecs.

Feedback from stars influences the inhomogeneous gas in the shell walls.

Star formation may be triggered by collisions of HI supershells.

Abstract

We report a detailed analysis of all regions of current star formation in the walls of the supergiant HI shell (SGS) in the galaxy Holmberg II based on observations with a scanning Fabry-Perot interferometer at the 6-m SAO RAS telescope. We compare the structure and kinematics of ionized gas with that of atomic hydrogen and with the stellar population of the SGS. Our deep H$\alpha$ images and archival images taken by the HST demonstrate that current star formation episodes are larger and more complicated than previously thought: they represent unified star-forming complexes with sizes of several hundred pc rather than 'chains' of separate bright nebulae in the walls of the SGS. The fact that we are dealing with unified complexes is evidenced by identified faint shell-like structures of ionized and neutral gas which connect several distinct bright HII regions. Formation of such complexes is due to the feedback of stars with very inhomogeneous ambient gas in the walls of the SGS. The arguments supporting an idea about the triggering of star formation in SGS by the HI supershells collision are presented. We also found a faint ionized supershell inside the HI SGS expanding with a velocity of no greater than 10-15 km/s. Five OB stars located inside the inner supershell are sufficient to account for its radiation, although a possibility of leakage of ionizing photons from bright HII regions is not ruled out as well.