We present the preliminary results of the INTEGRAL survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The observations have been carried out in January 2003 (about 10^6 s) and January 2004 (about 4x10^5 s). Here we concentrate on the bright sources LMC X-1, LMC X-2, LMC X-3 located in our satellite galaxy, and on the serendipitous detections of the Galactic Low Mass X-ray Binary EXO 0748-676 and of the Seyfert 2 galaxy IRAS 04575-7537.
The first INTEGRAL observations of the Small Magellanic Cloud (carried out in 2003) are reported in which two sources are clearly detected. The first source, SMC X-1, shows a hard X-ray eclipse and measurements of its pulse period indicate a continuation of the long-term spin-up now covering ~30 years. The second source is likely to be a high mass X-ray binary, and shows a potential periodicity of 6.8s in the IBIS lightcurve. An exact X-ray or optical counterpart cannot be designated, but a number of proposed counterparts are discussed. One of these possible counterparts shows a strong coherent optical modulation at ~2.7d, which, together with the measured hard X-ray pulse period, would lead to this INTEGRAL source being classified as the fourth known high mass Roche lobe overflow system.
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way at a distance of approximately 48 kpc. Despite its distance it harbours several interesting targets for TeV gamma-ray observations. The composite supernova remnant N 157B/PSR J05367-6910 was discovered by H.E.S.S. being an emitter of very high energy (VHE) gamma-rays. It is the most distant pulsar wind nebula ever detected in VHE gamma-rays. Another very exciting target is SN 1987A, the remnant of the most recent supernova explosion that occurred in the neighbourhood of the Milky Way. Models for Cosmic Ray acceleration in this remnant predict gamma-ray emission at a level detectable by H.E.S.S. but this has not been detected so far. Fermi/LAT discovered diffuse high energy (HE) gamma-ray emission from the general direction of the massive star forming region 30 Doradus but no clear evidence for emission from either N 157B or SN 1987A has been published. The part of the LMC containing these objects has been observed regularly with the H.E.S.S. telescopes since 2003. With deep observations carried out in 2010 a very good exposure of this part of the sky has been obtained. The current status of the H.E.S.S. LMC observations is reported along with new results on N 157B and SN 1987A.
We present high-resolution (sub-parsec) observations of a giant molecular cloud in the nearest star-forming galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. ALMA Band 6 observations trace the bulk of the molecular gas in $^{12}$CO(2-1) and high column density regions in $^{13}$CO(2-1). Our target is a quiescent cloud (PGCC G282.98-32.40, which we refer to as the Planck cold cloud or PCC) in the southern outskirts of the galaxy where star-formation activity is very low and largely confined to one location. We decompose the cloud into structures using a dendrogram and apply an identical analysis to matched-resolution cubes of the 30 Doradus molecular cloud (located near intense star formation) for comparison. Structures in the PCC exhibit roughly 10 times lower surface density and 5 times lower velocity dispersion than comparably sized structures in 30 Dor, underscoring the non-universality of molecular cloud properties. In both clouds, structures with relatively higher surface density lie closer to simple virial equilibrium, whereas lower surface density structures tend to exhibit super-virial line widths. In the PCC, relatively high line widths are found in the vicinity of an infrared source whose properties are consistent with a luminous young stellar object. More generally, we find that the smallest resolved structures (leaves) of the dendrogram span close to the full range of line widths observed across all scales. As a result, while the bulk of the kinetic energy is found on the largest scales, the small-scale energetics tend to be dominated by only a few structures, leading to substantial scatter in observed size-linewidth relationships.
We present IRAC and MIPS images and photometry of a sample of previously known planetary nebulae (PNe) from the SAGE survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) performed with the Spitzer Space Telescope. Of the 233 known PNe in the survey field, 185 objects were detected in at least two of the IRAC bands, and 161 detected in the MIPS 24 micron images. Color-color and color-magnitude diagrams are presented using several combinations of IRAC, MIPS, and 2MASS magnitudes. The location of an individual PN in the color-color diagrams is seen to depend on the relative contributions of the spectral components which include molecular hydrogen, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), infrared forbidden line emission from the ionized gas, warm dust continuum, and emission directly from the central star. The sample of LMC PNe is compared to a number of Galactic PNe and found to not significantly differ in their position in color-color space. We also explore the potential value of IR PNe luminosity functions (LFs) in the LMC. IRAC LFs appear to follow the same functional form as the well-established [O III] LFs although there are several PNe with observed IR magnitudes brighter than the cut-offs in these LFs.
The textit{Spitzer} SAGE survey has allowed the identification and analysis of significant samples of Young Stellar Object (YSO) candidates in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). However the angular resolution of textit{Spitzer} is relatively poor meaning that at the distance of the LMC, it is likely that many of the textit{Spitzer} YSO candidates in fact contain multiple components. We present high resolution textit{K}-band integral field spectroscopic observations of the three most prominent massive YSO candidates in the N113 H,{sc ii} region using VLT/SINFONI. We have identified six textit{K}-band continuum sources within the three textit{Spitzer} sources and we have mapped the morphology and velocity fields of extended line emission around these sources. Br$gamma$, He,{sc i} and H$_2$ emission is found at the position of all six textit{K}-band sources; we discuss whether the emission is associated with the continuum sources or whether it is ambient emission. H$_2$ emission appears to be mostly ambient emission and no evidence of CO emission arising in the discs of YSOs has been found. We have mapped the centroid velocities of extended Br$gamma$ emission and He {sc i} emission and found evidence of two expanding compact H,{sc ii} regions. One source shows compact and strong H$_2$ emission suggestive of a molecular outflow. The diversity of spectroscopic properties observed is interpreted in the context of a range of evolutionary stages associated with massive star formation.