Abstract

Contributed Talk - Splinter GalaxyEvol

Thursday, 12 September 2024, 16:45   (S21)

APEX Legacy Survey of the molecular gas in the LMC

K. Grishunin, A. Weiss, D. Colombo
MPIfR, AIfA

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a unique laboratory for extragalactic studies of star formation. The LMC’s stellar mass(~2.7 imes 10^9 M_solar) and star formation rate (~0.2 M_solar / yr) place it on the main sequence of star-forming galaxies, whereas its low-metallicity environment resembles that of dwarf and high-redshift galaxies. At the same time, the proximity (~50 kpc) and nearly face-on orientation of the LMC allow us to study the distribution of molecular gas in its disc at a high spatial resolution. From 2019 to the end of 2023, we observed the LMC in the 12CO(3–2) and 13CO(3–2) lines with the APEX telescope. In total, our survey covered 23.4 sq. deg. (17.8 pc^2) of the LMC disk at a spatial resolution of 5 pc. In this talk, I will introduce the survey and present our analysis of the cloud luminosity and mass functions in the LMC, the scaling relations between selected cloud properties in the galaxy, and the 12CO(3–2) / 12CO(1–0) line ratio that highlights the LMC regions with potentially extreme excitations.