OB stellar associations in the Large Magellanic Cloud: Survey of young stellar systems

¹ Sternwarte der Universität Bonn, Auf dem Hügel 71, 53121 Bonn, Germany
² Department of Astrophysics Astronomy & Mechanics, Faculty of Physics, University of Athens, 15783 Athens, Greece
³ Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, National Observatory of Athens, PO Box 20048, 118 10 Athens, Greece
⁴ Dionysos Satellite Observatory, National Technical University of Athens, 15780 Athens, Greece

Corresponding author: D. Gouliermis, dgoulier@astro.uni-bonn.de/horus@mailbox.gr

Received: 20 January 2003
Accepted: 25 March 2003

Abstract

The method developed by Gouliermis et al. ([CITE], Paper I), for the detection and classification of stellar systems in the LMC, was used for the identification of stellar associations and open clusters in the central area of the LMC. This method was applied on the stellar catalog produced from a scanned 1.2 m UK Schmidt Telescope Plate in U with a field of view almost 65 65, centered on the Bar of this galaxy. The survey of the identified systems is presented here followed by the results of the investigation on their spatial distribution and their structural parameters, as were estimated according to our proposed methodology in Paper I. The detected open clusters and stellar associations show to form large filamentary structures, which are often connected with the loci of HI shells. The derived mean size of the stellar associations in this survey was found to agree with the average size found previously by other authors, for stellar associations in different galaxies. This common size of about 80 pc might represent a universal scale for the star formation process, whereas the parameter correlations of the detected loose systems support the distinction between open clusters and stellar associations.