Three candidate double clusters in the LMC: truth or dare?
  The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) hosts a large number of candidate stellar
cluster pairs. Binary stellar clusters provide important clues about cluster
formation processes and the evolutionary history of the host galaxy. However,
to properly extract and interpret this information, it is crucial to fully
constrain the fraction of real binary systems and their physical properties.
Here we present a detailed photometric analysis based on ESO-FORS2 images of
three candidate cluster multiplets in the LMC, namely SL349-SL353,
SL385-SL387-NGC1922 and NGC1836-BRHT4b-NGC1839. For each cluster we derived
ages, structural parameters and morphological properties. We have also
estimated the degree of filling of their Roche lobe, as an approximate tool to
measure the strength of the tidal perturbations induced by the LMC. We find
that the members of the possible pairs SL349-SL353 and BRHT4b-NGC1839 have a
similar age ($t = 1.00 \pm 0.12$ Gyr and $t = 140 \pm 15$ Myr, respectively),
thus possibly hinting to a common origin of their member systems We also find
that all candidate pairs in our sample show evidence of intra-cluster
overdensities that can be a possible indication of real binarity. Particularly
interesting is the case of SL349-SL353. In fact, SL353 is relatively close to
the condition of critical filling, thus suggesting that these systems might
actually constitute an energetically bound pair. It is therefore key to pursue
a detailed kinematic screening of such clusters, without which, at present, we
do not dare making a conclusive statement about the true nature of this
putative pair.
