Forming clusters within clusters: How 30 Doradus recollapsed and gave birth again

Abstract

The 30 Doradus Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) contains the massive starburst cluster NGC 2070 with a massive and probably younger stellar sub clump at its center: R136. It is not clear how such a massive inner cluster could form several million years after the older stars in NGC 2070, given that stellar feedback is usually thought to expel gas and inhibit further star formation. Using the recently developed 1D feedback scheme WARPFIELD to scan a large range of cloud and cluster properties, we show that an age offset of several million years between the stellar populations is in fact to be expected given the interplay between feedback and gravity in a giant molecular cloud (GMC) with a density $\gtrsim 500$ cm${}^{-3}$ due to re-accretion of gas onto the older stellar population. Neither capture of field stars nor gas retention inside the cluster have to be invoked in order to explain the observed age offset in NGC 2070 as well as the structure of the interstellar medium (ISM) around it.

5 pages, 3 figures, accepted to MNRAS

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Mapping metallicity variations across nearby galaxy disks
• The molecular cloud lifecycle
• Simulations of the star-forming molecular gas in an interacting M51-like galaxy
• The Global Star-Formation Law by Supernova Feedback
• Structural and Dynamical Analysis of 0.1pc Cores and Filaments in the 30~Doradus-10 Giant Molecular Cloud
• The density gradient inside molecular-gas clumps as a booster of their star formation activity