The formation of the HII regions N83 and N84 in the Small Magellanic Cloud triggered by colliding HI flows

TL;DR

This study investigates how colliding HI gas flows in the Small Magellanic Cloud triggered the formation of HII regions N83 and N84, revealing gas dynamics, cloud interactions, and star formation processes.

Contribution

It presents new high-resolution HI and CO observations showing gas collision and flow dynamics that triggered star formation in the SMC, a novel insight into cloud interactions in this galaxy.

Findings

Complementary distribution of HI clouds with 40 km/s velocity separation.

Clumpy CO clouds correlated with HII regions, indicating recent star formation.

Evidence of large-scale gas flow from the north to south in the SMC.

Abstract

LHA 115-N 83 (N83) and LHA 115-N 84 (N84) are HII regions associated with the early stage of star formation located in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). We have analyzed the new HI data taken with the Galactic Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder survey project at a high angular resolution of 30". We found that the two clouds, having $\sim$40 km s$^{-1}$ velocity separation, show complementary distribution with each other, and part of the HI gas is dispersed by the ionization. In addition, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observations revealed clumpy CO clouds of 10$^{5}$ $M_{\odot}$ in total over an extent of 100 pc, which are also well correlated with the HII regions. There is a hint of displacement between the two complementary components, which indicate that the red-shifted HI cloud is moving from the north to the south by $\sim$100 pc. This motion is similar to what is found in NGC 602 (Fukui et al. 2020), suggesting a large scale systematic gas flow. We frame a scenario that the two components collided with each other and triggered the formation of N83, N84, and six O-type stars around them in a time scale of a few Myr ($\sim$60 pc / 40 km s$^{-1}$). The supersonic motion compressed the HI gas to form the CO clouds in the red-shifted HI cloud, some of which are forming O-type stars ionizing the HII regions in the last Myr. The red-shifted HI cloud probably flows to the direction of the Magellanic Bridge. The velocity field originated by the close encounter of the SMC with the Large Magellanic Cloud 200 Myr ago as proposed by Fujimoto & Noguchi (1990).