Young stars in the periphery of the Large Magellanic Cloud

TL;DR

This study identifies recent star formation in the far outskirts of the Large Magellanic Cloud, revealing young stars formed in situ and suggesting a possible collision-triggered star formation episode.

Contribution

It provides the first spectroscopic confirmation of young stars in the LMC's periphery and links their formation to a potential off-center collision event.

Findings

Confirmed six young stars in the LMC's outskirts with velocities matching the galaxy.

Detected a ring-like spatial distribution of young stars at ~12 kpc radius.

Indicates recent in situ star formation possibly triggered by a collision with the Small Magellanic Cloud.

Abstract

Despite their close proximity, the complex interplay between the two Magellanic Clouds, the Milky Way, and the resulting tidal features, is still poorly understood. Recent studies have shown that the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) has a very extended disk strikingly perturbed in its outskirts. We search for recent star formation in the far outskirts of the LMC, out to ~30 degrees from its center. We have collected intermediate-resolution spectra of thirty-one young star candidates in the periphery of the LMC and measured their radial velocity, stellar parameters, distance and age. Our measurements confirm membership to the LMC of six targets, for which the radial velocity and distance values match well those of the Cloud. These objects are all young (10-50 Myr), main-sequence stars projected between 7 and 13 degrees from the center of the parent galaxy. We compare the velocities of our stars with those of a disk model, and find that our stars have low to moderate velocity differences with the disk model predictions, indicating that they were formed in situ. Our study demonstrates that recent star formation occurred in the far periphery of the LMC, where thus far only old objects were known. The spatial configuration of these newly-formed stars appears ring-like with a radius of 12 kpc, and a displacement of 2.6 kpc from the LMC's center. This structure, if real, would be suggestive of a star-formation episode triggered by an off-center collision between the Small Magellanic Cloud and the LMC's disk.