Thermal X-ray Emission in the Western Half of the LMC Superbubble 30 Dor C

Abstract

While 30 Dor C is a unique superbubble in the Large Magellanic Cloud for its luminous non-thermal X-ray emission, the thermal X-ray emission it emanates has not yet been thoroughly investigated and well constrained. Based on the separate ~1 Ms deep XMM-Newton and Chandra observations, we report the discovery of the thermally-emitting plasma in some portions of the western half of 30 Dor C. The thermal emission can be reproduced by a collisional-ionization-equilibrium plasma model with an average electron temperature of ~0.4 keV. We find a significant overabundance of the intermediate-mass elements such as O, Ne, Mg, and Si, which may be indicative of a recent supernova explosion in 30 Dor C. Dynamical properties in combination with the information of the OB association LH 90 suggest that the internal post-main-sequence stars dominate the power of the superbubble and blow it out in the past ~1 Myr.