AChandraACIS Study of 30 Doradus. I. Superbubbles and Supernova Remnants

We present an X-ray tour of diffuse emission in the 30 Doradus star-formingcomplex in the Large Magellanic Cloud using high-spatial-resolution X-rayimages and spatially-resolved spectra obtained with the Advanced CCD ImagingSpectrometer aboard the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The dominant X-ray featureof the 30 Doradus nebula is the intricate network of diffuse emission generatedby interacting stellar winds and supernovae working together to create vastsuperbubbles filled with hot plasma. We construct maps of the region showingvariations in plasma temperature (T = 3--9 million degrees), absorption (N_H =1--6 x 10^{21} cm^{-2}), and absorption-corrected X-ray surface brightness (S_X= 3--126 x 10^{31} ergs s^{-1} pc^{-2}). Enhanced images reveal the pulsar windnebula in the composite supernova remnant N157B and the Chandra data showspectral evolution from non-thermal synchrotron emission in the N157B core to athermal plasma in its outer regions. In a companion paper we show that R136,the central massive star cluster, is resolved at the arcsecond level intoalmost 100 X-ray sources. Through X-ray studies of 30 Doradus the complete lifecycle of such a massive stellar cluster can be revealed.Comment: 42 pages, 15 bitmapped figures, 4 tables; accepted to A