The Effect of Massive Stars on the Interstellar Medium of Starburst Galaxies: New HST Observations

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Session 37 -- Massive Hot Stars with the Hubble Space Telescope Part II
Oral presentation, Tuesday, 31, 1994, 2:00-5:30

[37.06] The Effect of Massive Stars on the Interstellar Medium of Starburst Galaxies: New HST Observations

Timothy M. Heckman (Johns Hopkins University)

Radiation and kinetic energy supplied by hot massive stars and their evolutionary byproducts dominate the energetics of the interstellar medium in normal star-forming galaxies. In starburst galaxies this 'feedback' from massive stars can lead to the large- scale outflow of the interstellar medium in the form of a galactic wind. Recent HST far-ultraviolet spectra of starburst galaxies provide us with a new probe of the impact of massive stars on the interstellar medium: interstellar absorption-lines from ionic species spanning a wide range in ionization state from CI to NV. These lines are strong (several \AA\ equivalent width), broad (500 to 900 km/s), and blueshifted by a one-to-several-hundred km/s with respect to the systemic velocity. The strong lines lie on the saturated part of the curve-of-growth, implying typical ionic columns of at least 10$^{14}$ cm$^{-2}$ and minimum total hydrogen column densities of 10$^{20}$ cm$^{-2}$. We are evidently observing a substantial quantity of gas that has been 'stirred up' and photoionized and/or collisionally ionized by the population of massive stars in the starburst. These new HST data will be placed in the context of IUE, X-ray, and optical data concerning the warm and hot phases of the interstellar medium in starbursts.

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