VIMOS-IFU Spectroscopy of Extragalactic Star Forming Complexes.

We present VLT-VIMOS-IFU spectroscopy of the overlap region in the merging Antennae galaxies (NGC∼4038/39). This regions contains six complexes of young massive clusters, three of which display strong Wolf-Rayet features, indicating extremely young ages (∼3-7∼Myr). The high area normalised star formation rates within these young complexes places them in the regime of starburst galaxies, thereby justifying the designation of localised starbursts. The ionised gas surrounding the complexes is expanding at speeds of 20-40∼km/s. This slow expansion can be understood as a bubble, caused by the stellar winds and supernovae within the complexes, expanding into the remnant of the progenitor giant molecular cloud. We also find that the complexes are likely to lose a large fraction of their extended material to the surrounding regions, however the central regions may merge into a single massive star cluster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]