CSIRO PUBLISHING

Ram-Pressure Induced Star Formation in the LMC

Chiara Mastropietro ^A ^C, Andreas Burkert ^A and Ben Moore ^B

^A Universitäts Sternwarte München, Scheinerstr. 1, D-81679 München, Germany
^B Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Zürich, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland
^C Corresponding author. Email: chiara@usm.uni-muenchen.de

Abstract

We use high-resolution n-body/SPH simulations to study the hydrodynamical interaction between the Large Magellanic Cloud and the hot halo of the Milky Way. We investigate whether the ram-pressure acting on the gaseous disk of the satellite can explain the peculiarities observed in the Hi distribution and the location of the recent star formation activity.

Keywords: galaxies: Magellanic Clouds — methods: n-body simulations

Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia 25(3) 138–148 doi:10.1071/AS07049
Submitted: 15 November 2007 Accepted: 23 April 2008 Published: 29 September 2008