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EP: Fachverband Extraterrestrische Physik

EP 9: Astrophysics I

EP 9.5: Hauptvortrag

Freitag, 3. September 2021, 12:15–12:45, H5

The SOFIA legacy program FEEDBACK — •Nicola Schneider¹ and Alexander Tielens^{2, 3} — ¹I. Physik. Institut, University of Cologne — ²Leiden Observatory, Leiden — ³Dep. of Astronomy, University of Maryland

Massive stars play a key role in the evolution of the interstellar medium (ISM) in galaxies because they impact the ISM through ionization, stellar winds, and supernova explosions. This stellar feedback regulates the physical conditions of the ISM, sets its emission characteristics, and ultimately governs the star formation activity.

I present here the first results of the SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) legacy program FEEDBACK. The project has been granted 96 hours observing time and started in 2019 in order to map Galactic star-forming regions in the emission lines of ionized carbon ([CII]) at 158μm and oxygen ([OI]) at 63μm. The major results so far are that (i) we discovered in all FEEDBACK sources expanding bubbles seen in the [CII] line, driven by stellar winds, that trigger further star formation, (ii) large amounts of cold [CII] that is ionized by cosmic rays and associated with atomic hydrogen, and (iii) dynamic signatures of molecular cloud collisions seen with [CII].

The FEEDBACK program thus fullfills its expectation to quantify the relationship between star formation activity and energy injection and the negative and positive feedback processes involved, and link that to other measures of activity on scales of individual massive stars, of small stellar groups, and of star clusters.