Identifying young stellar objects in nine Large Magellanic Cloud star-forming regions

Abstract

We introduce a new set of selection criteria for the identification of infrared bright young stellar object (YSO) candidates and apply them to nine Hii regions in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), focusing particularly on lower mass candidates missed by most surveys. Data are from the Spitzer Space Telescope legacy program SAGE (Surveying the Agents of Galaxy Evolution; Meixner et al. 2006, AJ, 132, 2268), combined with optical photometry from the Magellanic Clouds Photometric Survey (MCPS; Zaritsky et al. 1997, AJ, 114, 1002) and near-infrared photometry from the InfraRed Survey Facility (IRSF; Kato et al. 2007, PASJ, 59, 615). We choose regions of diverse physical size, star formation rates (SFRs), and ages. We also cover a wide range of locations and surrounding environments in the LMC. These active star-forming regions are LHA 120-N 11, N 44, N 51, N 105, N 113, N 120, N 144, N 160, and N 206. Some have been well-studied (e.g., N11, N44, N160) in the past, while others (e.g., N51, N144) have received little attention. We identify 1045 YSO candidates, including 918 never before identified and 127 matching previous candidate lists. We characterize the evolutionary stage and physical properties of each candidate using the spectral energy distribution (SED) fitter of Robitaille et al. (2007, ApJS, 169, 328) and estimate mass functions and SFRs for each region. © 2012 ESO.