X-ray stellar population of the LMC

Abstract

In the study of stars, the high energy domain occupies a place of choice, since it is the only one able to directly probe the most violent phenomena: indeed, young pre-main sequence objects, hot massive stars, or X-ray binaries are best revealed in X-rays. However, previously available X-ray observatories often provided only crude information on individual objects in the Magellanic Clouds. The advent of the highly efficient X-ray facilities XMM-Newton and Chandra has now dramatically increased the sensitivity and the spatial resolution available to X-ray astronomers, thus enabling a fairly easy determination of the properties of individual sources in the LMC.

Invited review at IAUS 256 "The Magellanic system: stars, gas and galaxies" (July 2008, Keele, UK); proceedings edited by J. Th. van Loon and J. M. Oliveira; 10 pages, 1 figure (in jpg)