Near?Infrared Observations of N11 in the Large Magellanic Cloud: Triggered Star Formation around the Periphery of LH 9

Abstract

Near-infrared observations have been carried out to survey young stellar objects in the second-largest H II region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, N11. A total area of about 700 arcmin 2 is covered in the J, H, and K S bands. We selected a total of 559 OB and 127 Herbig Ae/Be star candidates out of the detected sources based on their near-infrared colors and magnitudes. The existence of these young stellar objects indicates that star formation activity is underway in the whole Nil region. Many Herbig Ae/Be star candidates are distributed around the periphery of the OB association LH 9. Spatial correlations of the OB and Herbig Ae/Be star candidates with the objects observed at other wavelengths (optical, radio continuum, Hα, CO, and X-ray) suggest that the birth of the young stellar populations in peripheral molecular clouds was triggered originally by LH 9. It is likely that the trigger for this star formation was an expanding supershell blown by the OB association. In N11 a new generation of stars would have been formed in the clouds developed from swept-up interstellar medium. © 2006. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.