IRAS OBSERVATIONS AND THE STELLAR CONTENT OF H II REGIONS IN THE LARGE MAGELLANIC CLOUD

IRAS far-infrared fluxes are presented for six H II regions in the Large Magellanic Cloud. These regions are the sites of recent, massive star formation where the radiative heating source is young stars rather than the general interstellar radiation field. As such, the observations become building blocks for the interpretation of far-infrared emission from spatially unresolved galaxies. In addition, the multiwavelength luminosities of the region then probe the young stellar upper initial mass function. With the long-range goal of determining the stellar content of unresolved star-forming regions, we present the results of a simple model which combines the infrared data with existing Halpha/Hbeta and thermal radio data. For the two OB associations where the mass function has been determined directly, the model correctly "predicts" a solar neighborhood upper mass function within the uncertainties. No evidence is found for upper mass functions significantly different from that in the solar neighborhood.