Description
The kinetic temperature of molecular clouds is a fundamental physical parameter affecting star formation and the initial mass function. The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the closest star forming galaxy with low metallicity, provides an ideal laboratory to study star formation in such an environment. The classical dense molecular gas thermometer NH_3_ is rarely available in a low metallicity environment because of photoionization and a lack of nitrogen atoms. Our goal is to directly measure the gas kinetic temperature with formaldehyde toward six star-forming regions in the LMC. Three rotational transitions (J_KAKC_ = 3_03_-2_02_, 3_22_-2_21_, and 3_21_-2_20_) of para-H_2_CO near 218GHz were observed with the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX) 12m telescope toward six star forming regions in the LMC. Those data are complemented by C^18^O 2-1 spectra.
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