WFPC2 observations of the double cluster NGC 1850 in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Hubble Space Telescope-Wide Field/Planetary Camera-2 (HST-WFPC2) optical and ultraviolet imaging observations of the young double cluster NGC 1850 in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) are presented. The main cluster, NGC 1850A, is a globular-like cluster and has an age of 50 +/- 10 Myr, while the subcluster, NGC 1850B, which is more loosely distributed, is very young at 4.3 +/- 0.9 Myr. Its young age is confirmed by the detection of a pre-main-sequence population of stars associated to it. The two clusters have considerably different IMF slopes, with the main cluster having a flat slope (f(m) proportional to m(exp -1.4 +/- 0.2)) and the young cluster a much steeper one (f(m) proportional to m(exp -2.6 +/- -0.1)). The LMC field star population displays a broad range of ages, from approximately 0.5 Gyr up to more than 4 Gyr.