The initial conditions of young globular clusters in the LMC

Abstract

N-body simulations are used to model the early evolution of globular clusters. These simulations include residual gas which was not turned into stars which is expelled from the globular cluster by the actions of massive stars. The results of these simulations are compared to observations of 8 LMC globular clusters less than 100 Myr old. These observations are used to constrain the initial conditions that may have produced these clusters. It is found that the entire variety of young LMC globular clusters may be explained in a model where they form from a fairly uniform population of roughly spherical, relaxed proto-cluster clouds very similar to Giant Molecular Clouds in the Galaxy, with star formation efficiencies between 25% and 60%. This paper has been accepted for publication in MNRAS.