Supersonic water masers in 30 Doradus

Abstract

We report on extremely high velocity molecular gas, up to -80 km/s relative to the ambient medium, in the giant star-formation complex 30 Doradus in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), as observed in new 22 GHz H2O maser emission spectra obtained with the Mopra radio telescope. The masers may trace the velocities of protostars, and the observed morphology and kinematics indicate that current star formation occurs near the interfaces of colliding stellar-wind blown bubbles. The large space velocities of the protostars and associated gas could result in efficient mixing of the LMC. A similar mechanism in the Milky Way could seed the galactic halo with relatively young stars and gas.

11 pages plus 1 PS and 1 EPS figure, uses AASTeX preprint style; accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters

References in corpus (2)

• The origin of runaway stars
• Discovery of molecular hydrogen in a high-velocity cloud of the Galactic halo

Cited by in corpus (6)

• The VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey. XXIX. Massive star formation in the local 30 Doradus starburst
• A Chandra/ACIS Study of 30 Doradus II. X-ray Point Sources in the Massive Star Cluster R136 and Beyond
• A massive runaway star from 30 Doradus
• Massive Young Stellar Objects in the Large Magellanic Cloud: water masers and ESO-VLT 3-4 micron spectroscopy
• ESO-VLT and Spitzer spectroscopy of IRAS05328-6827: a massive young stellar object in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• The Detection of Deuterated Water in the Large Magellanic Cloud with ALMA