THE YOUNG INTERCLOUD POPULATION - II - THE MIDWEST OF THE LARGE-MAGELLANIC-CLOUD

We present BV CCD photometry of a field of blue stars in the midwest o f the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) located nearly 3 degrees from its c enter. This stellar population, first noted by M. Pierre (1987), is fo und to consist of stars of all ages greater than similar to 30 Myr alo ng with a substantial 4.5 Gyr old population. This field corresponds t o the outermost known region of blue stars in the southwest quadrant o f the LMC. The slope of the observed differential luminosity function (LF) for the main-sequence stars is in good agreement with other deter minations of LMC field regions but differs significantly from the LF o f the intercloud aggregates. We conclude that, because this field does not show, in recent time, any significant burst of star formation, it is not chronologically linked to the LMC/Small Magellanic Cloud close encounter. Therefore, star formation must have taken place continuous ly in that area for at least similar to 1 Gyr.