English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

The time-scales associated with the various stages of the star formationprocess remain poorly constrained. This includes the earliest phases of starformation, during which molecular clouds condense out of the atomicinterstellar medium. We present the first in a series of papers with theultimate goal of compiling the first multi-tracer timeline of star formation,through a comprehensive set of evolutionary phases from atomic gas clouds tounembedded young stellar populations. In this paper, we present an empiricaldetermination of the lifetime of atomic clouds using the Uncertainty Principlefor Star Formation formalism, based on the de-correlation of H$\alpha$ andH\,{\sc i} emission as a function of spatial scale. We find an atomic gas cloudlifetime of 48$\substack{+13\\-8}$\,Myr. This timescale is consistent with thepredicted average atomic cloud lifetime in the LMC (based on galactic dynamics)that is dominated by the gravitational collapse of the mid-plane ISM. We alsodetermine the overlap time-scale for which both H\,{\sc i} and H$\alpha$emission are present to be very short ($t_{over}<1.7$\,Myr), consistent withzero, indicating that there is a near-to-complete phase change of the gas to amolecular form in an intermediary stage between H\,{\sc i} clouds and H\,{\scii} regions. We utilise the time-scales derived in this work to placeempirically determined limits on the time-scale of molecular cloud formation.By performing the same analysis with and without the 30 Doradus regionincluded, we find that the most extreme star forming environment in the LMC haslittle effect on the measured average atomic gas cloud lifetime. By measuringthe lifetime of the atomic gas clouds, we place strong constraints on thephysics that drives the formation of molecular clouds and establish a solidfoundation for the development of a multi-tracer timeline of star formation inthe LMC.

Towards a multi-tracer timeline of star formation in the LMC -- I.\ Deriving the lifetimes of H\,{\sc i} clouds