Statistics of stellar populations of star clusters and surrounding fields in the outer disk of the Large Magallanic Cloud

Abstract

A comparative analysis of Washington color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) for 14 star clusters and respective surrounding fields in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) outer disk is presented. Each CCD frame including field and the respective cluster covers an area of 185 arcmin². The stellar population sampled is of intermediate age and metallicity. CMD radial analysis involving star count ratios, morphologies, and integrated light properties are carried out. Luminosity functions (LFs) are also presented. The two main results are, (1) within the range 4 kpc<R<8 kpc, the distance from the LMC center is well correlated with the average age in the sense that inner Ðelds are younger and (2) beyond ≈8 kpc the outer Ðelds do not show evidence of a signiÐcant intermediate-age component in their stellar populations, as inferred from red giant clump star counts.