Massive stars in the Tarantula Nebula: A Rosetta Stone for Extragalactic Supergiant HII Regions

Abstract

A review of the properties of the Tarantula Nebula (30 Doradus) in the Large Magellanic Cloud is presented, primarily from the perspective of its massive star content. The proximity of the Tarantula and its accessibility to X-ray through radio observations permit it to serve as a Rosetta Stone amongst extragalactic supergiant HII regions since one can consider both its integrated characteristics and the individual properties of individual massive stars. Recent surveys of its high mass stellar content, notably the VLT FLAMES Tarantula Survey (VFTS), are reviewed, together with VLT/MUSE observations of the central ionizing region NGC 2070 and HST/STIS spectroscopy of the young dense cluster R136, provide a near complete Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of the region, and cumulative ionizing output. Several high mass binaries are highlighted, some of which have been identified from a recent X-ray survey. Brief comparisons with the stellar content of giant HII regions in the Milky Way (NGC 3372) and Small Magellanic Cloud (NGC 346) are also made, together with Green Pea galaxies and star forming knots in high-z galaxies. Finally, the prospect of studying massive stars in metal poor galaxies is evaluated.

arXiv comment23 pages, 12 figures, review paper accepted for "Luminous Stars in Nearby Galaxies" special issue of Galaxies (guest editor Roberta Humphreys)

References in corpus (28)

• Binary interaction dominates the evolution of massive stars
• Pre-Supernova Evolution of Massive Single and Binary Stars
• Mass loss from hot massive stars
• An H-alpha Imaging Survey of Galaxies in the Local 11 Mpc Volume
• The Discordance of Mass-Loss Estimates for Galactic O-Type Stars
• Detection of high Lyman continuum leakage from four low-redshift compact star-forming galaxies
• Lyman continuum leaking from the compact star-forming dwarf galaxy J0925+1403
• An excess of massive stars in the local 30 Doradus starburst
• Evolution and fate of very massive stars
• The R136 star cluster dissected with Hubble Space Telescope/STIS. I. Far-ultraviolet spectroscopic census and the origin of HeII 1640 in young star clusters
• BONNSAI: a Bayesian tool for comparing stars with stellar evolution models
• A Census of the Carina Nebula. I: Cumulative Energy Input from Massive Stars
• The spectroscopic Hertzsprung-Russell diagram
• The Effects of Stellar Rotation. I. Impact on the Ionizing Spectra and Integrated Properties of Stellar Populations
• The luminosities of cool supergiants in the Magellanic Clouds, and the Humphreys-Davidson limit revisited
• Hubble Tarantula Treasury Project. III. Photometric Catalog and Resulting Constraints on the Progression of Star Formation in the 30 Doradus Region
• Cygnus OB2 DANCe: A high precision proper motion study of the Cygnus OB2 association
• A photoionization modeling study of 30 Doradus: the case for small-scale chemical inhomogeneity
• CHANDRA ACIS Spectroscopy of N157B -- A Young Composite Supernova Remnant in a Superbubble
• Discovery of the massive overcontact binary VFTS 352: Evidence for enhanced internal mixing
• Hubble Tarantula Treasury Project: Unraveling Tarantula's Web. I. Observational overview and first results
• Mrk 71/NGC 2366: The nearest Green Pea analog
• Gaia DR2 reveals a very massive runaway star ejected from R136
• Weighing Melnick 34: the most massive binary system known
• METAL: The Metal Evolution, Transport, and Abundance in the Large Magellanic Cloud Hubble program. I. Overview and Initial Results
• New abundance measurements in UKS 1927-177, a very metal-poor galaxy in the Local Group
• The 155-day X-ray cycle of the very massive Wolf-Rayet star Melnick 34 in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Ongoing star formation at the outskirts of Sextans A: Spectroscopic detection of early-O type stars