Stellar populations associated with the LMC Papillon Nebula

Frédéric Meynadier (1) , Mohammad Heydari-Malayeri (1) , Lise Deharveng (2) , Vassilis Charmandaris (3, 1) , Thibaut Le Bertre (1) , Michael R. Rosa (4) , Daniel Schaerer (5, 6) , Hans Zinnecker (7)

1 LERMA - Laboratoire d'Etude du Rayonnement et de la Matière en Astrophysique
2 OAMP - Observatoire Astronomique de Marseille Provence
3 Department of Astronomy, Cornell University
4 ST-ECF - Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility
5 Observatoire Astronomique de l'Université de Genève
6 LATT - Laboratoire Astrophysique de Toulouse-Tarbes
7 AIP - Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam

We study the Large Magellanic Cloud Papillon Nebula (N 159-5), a conspicuous High Excitation Blob (HEB) lying in the star forming complex N 159. Using JHK near-infrared photometry obtained at the ESO VLT with the ISAAC camera, we examine the stellar populations associated with the Papillon, tracing their history using stellar evolution models. Two populations are revealed: one composed of young, massive stars with an age ˜ 3 Myr, and a second consisting of older lower mass stars of age spreading between 1 and 10 Gyr. We analyze the properties of those populations and discuss their significance in the context of N 159. We also estimate that if the star at the center of the Papillon is single its initial mass is ˜ 50 M_&sun; and it is affected by an extinction A_V ˜ 7 mag.

Domaines: Astrophysique [astro-ph]; Planète et Univers [physics]

Frédéric Meynadier, Mohammad Heydari-Malayeri, Lise Deharveng, Vassilis Charmandaris, Thibaut Le Bertre, et al.. Stellar populations associated with the LMC Papillon Nebula. Astronomy and Astrophysics - A&A, 2004, 422, pp.129-139. ⟨10.1051/0004-6361:20035875⟩. ⟨hal-03797196⟩