The Energy Balance of LMC1

Project: Star Formation History in The Supergiant shell LMC-1
Supergiant shells are the largest interstellar structures in galaxies and play an important role in the global structure and evolution of the interstellar medium. It is believed that supergiant shells are formed collectively by fast stellar winds and supernova explosions from a large number of massive stars. Much work has been done to investigate the massive stellar content and star formation histories of supergiant shells in galaxies. These investigations conclude that the past massive stellar content of several of the largest supergiant shells could not have formed and powered the supergiant shells. This conclusion, however, is based upon integrated photometry of clusters, not observations of individual stars. My mentors have obtained spectroscopic and X-ray images of the supergiant shell LMC-1 which enable us to measure the kinematic and thermal energy contained by the supergiant shell, respectively. My work is try to obtain UBV photometry of individual stars toward LMC-1. This photometric data can be used to derive the amount of energy which the massive stellar content of LMC-1 has deposited into the ISM. Thus, it is possible to determine if the underlying stellar population of LMC-1 has been able to provide the energy to power the supergiant shell. If the massive stellar content has been able to provide the required energy input, we will also be able to determine the efficiency of stellar energy feedback into the ISM on scales of ~1kpc.