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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 May 2016
Studying the cool atomic phase of the interstellar medium is of special significance as cool atomic clouds can become the raw material for star formation and so determine the evolution of the whole galaxy. The cool atomic interstellar medium of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) seems to be quite different from that in the Milky Way. In three 21 cm absorption line surveys using the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) the physical properties of the cool atomic hydrogen in the LMC and the halo of the Magellanic Clouds have been studied. Here we present the results of the third HI absorption line survey. A detailed investigation of the cool HI has been done toward the supergiant shell LMC4, the surroundings of 30 Doradus and in the direction of the eastern steep HI boundary. The data have been compared with survey 2 (Dickey et al. 1994) to probe the cool gas fraction for these different regions of the LMC and to study the differences of the cool atomic phase of the LMC and that of the Milky Way.