A clustered origin for isolated massive stars
  High-mass stars are commonly found in stellar clusters promoting the idea
that their formation occurs due to the physical processes linked with a young
stellar cluster. It has recently been reported that isolated high-mass stars
are present in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Due to their low velocities it has
been argued that these are high-mass stars which formed without a surrounding
stellar cluster. In this paper we present an alternative explanation for the
origin of these stars in which they formed in a cluster environment but are
subsequently dispersed into the field as their natal cluster is tidally
disrupted in a merger with a higher-mass cluster. They escape the merged
cluster with relatively low velocities typical of the cluster interaction and
thus of the larger scale velocity dispersion, similarly to the observed stars.
$N$-body simulations of cluster mergers predict a sizeable population of low
velocity ($\le$ 20 km s$^{-1}$), high-mass stars at distances of > 20 pc from
the cluster. High-mass clusters in which gas poor mergers are frequent would be
expected to commonly have halos of young stars, including high-mass stars, that
were actually formed in a cluster environment.
