2009A&A...505..177R

The 30 Doradus region in the Large Magellanic Cloud is one of the most outstanding star-forming regions of the Local Group and a primary target for studying star formation in an environment of low metallicity. To obtain a more complete picture of the cool gas that has not yet been consumed or dispersed, we searched for line emission from molecular clouds that could be associated with molecular hydrogen emission detected in the region. We obtained a high sensitivity J=2-1 map with the 15-m SEST telescope, complemented by pointed observations of J=2-1 and CS J=2-1. We report the discovery of a dense molecular cloud towards an embedded young massive star at ∼20'' (∼5pc, at the distance of 50kpc) northwest of R136, the compact massive central stellar cluster powering 30 Doradus in the LMC, which could be triggering star formation in the surrounding molecular clouds. We derived a molecular mass of ≲10⁴M_☉, a linear radius of 3pc, as an upper limit, and a mean density of >10³cm^–3 for the cloud. The detection of the CS J=2-1 emission line indicates higher densities, ∼10⁶cm^–3. The dense molecular cloud is associated with molecular 2.12µm H₂ emission. We suggest that the observed molecular gas could be the remains of dense molecular material surviving the action of strong UV fields and winds in which the young massive star has formed.