VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey
The VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey is a European Southern Observatory (ESO) Large Programme which has obtained multi-epoch FLAMES spectroscopy of over 900 stars in the 30 Doradus region of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). 30 Dor is our closest view of a starburst-like region in the local universe, giving us a unique laboratory in which to study stellar and cluster evolution. It's a rich stellar nursery, with many examples of the rare, short-lived evolutionary phases of the most massive stars.
The FLAMES survey has an unprecedented dataset of multi-epoch observations of the stellar content of 30 Dor. We are now analysing these data to provide answers to fundamental questions such as the effects that stellar rotation has on the evolution of stars, the binary fraction of massive stars, how binarity affects stellar evolution, and to also study the gas and stellar dynamics in this intricate and beautiful cluster, to provide input for models of star and cluster formation.
LATEST PAPER:
The fastest rotating O-type star and shortest period LMC pulsar - remnants of a SN-disrupted binary?
Dufton et al. 2011, ApJ, 743, L22
Ongoing related work: Two proposals relating to the Tarantula Survey were approved for Cycle 19 of the Hubble Space Telescope. One is led by Daniel Lennon (STScI, ESA) to study proper motions of the massive stars in 30 Dor to investigate their 3D dynamics (and the nature of suspected runaways). The second is led by Paul Crowther (Sheffield) to get spectroscopy of the large number of massive stars in R136, the dense cluster at the core of 30 Dor which hosts some of the most massive stars in the local Universe.
