Formation and Evolution of Filamentary Clouds Associated with High-Mass Star Formation in the Magellanic Clouds
Speaker: Kazuki Tokuda (Kagawa Univ.)
Abstract:
Recent ALMA observations have achieved ~0.1 pc resolution in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC), enabling the identification of filamentary molecular structures that are thought to be ubiquitous in Galactic star-forming regions. We find that the most luminous high-mass protostars (> 5 × 10^4 L_sun) in the LMC are often embedded in hub-filament systems, and some exhibit coherent, asymmetric head-tail structures extending beyond a single GMC, suggesting triggering by global-scale gas flows. In contrast, high-mass star-forming clouds in the SMC are not always filamentary. This morphological diversity may arise from thermal properties specific to the low-metallicity environment, highlighting the role of metallicity in shaping molecular cloud structures.