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Description
We mapped the kinetic temperature structure of two massive star-forming regions, N113 and N159W, in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). We have used ~1.6" (~0.4pc) resolution measurements of the para-H_2_CO J_KaKc_=3_03_-2_02_, 3_22_-2_21_, and 3_21_-2_20_ transitions near 218.5GHz to constrain RADEX non local thermodynamic equilibrium models of the physical conditions. The gas kinetic temperatures derived from the para-H_2_CO line ratios 3_22_-2_21_/3_03_-2_02_ and 3_21_-2_20_/3_03_-2_02_ range from 28 to 105K in N113 and 29 to 68K in N159W. Distributions of the dense gas traced by para-H_2_CO agree with those of the 1.3mm dust and Spitzer 8.0um emission, but they do not significantly correlate with the H emission. The high kinetic temperatures (T_kin_>~50K) of the dense gas traced by para-H_2_CO appear to be correlated with the embedded infrared sources inside the clouds and/or young stellar objects in the N113 and N159W regions. The lower temperatures (T_kin_<50K) were measured at the outskirts of the H_2_CO-bearing distributions of both N113 and N159W. It seems that the kinetic temperatures of the dense gas traced by para-H_2_CO are weakly affected by the external sources of the H{alpha} emission. The non thermal velocity dispersions of para-H_2_CO are well correlated with the gas kinetic temperatures in the N113 region, implying that the higher kinetic temperature traced by para-H_2_CO is related to turbulence on a ~0.4pc scale. The dense gas heating appears to be dominated by internal star formation activity, radiation, and/or turbulence. It seems that the mechanism heating the dense gas of the star-forming regions in the LMC is consistent with that in Galactic massive star-forming regions located in the Galactic plane.
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