Raw. Elson et al., HST OBSERVATIONS OF THE FIELD STAR POPULATION IN THE LARGE-MAGELLANIC-CLOUD, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 289(1), 1997, pp. 157-168
We present V and I photometry, obtained with the Hubble Space Telescop
e, for similar to 15 800 stars in a field in the inner disc of the Lar
ge Magellanic Cloud. We confirm previous results indicating that an in
tense star formation event, probably corresponding to the formation of
the LMC disc, occurred a few times 10(9) yr ago. We find a small but
real difference between our field and one further out in the disc obse
rved by Gallagher et al.: either star formation in the inner disc comm
enced slightly earlier, or the stars are slightly more metal-rich. We
also find evidence for a later burst, around 1 Gyr ago, which may corr
espond to the formation of the LMC bar. About 5 per cent of the stars
in our field are substantially older than either burst, and are probab
ly members of an old disc or halo population with age similar to 12 Gy
r.