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D.K. Strickland (JHU)
Starburst-driven galactic winds, such as those seen blowing out of M82 and NGC 253, represent a commonly occurring yet extreme mode of the feedback between massive stars and the ISM. Sadly, our understanding of the extent to which galactic winds contribute to the enrichment and heating of the IGM, the degree of mass loss from the host galaxy, and the origin and long term fate of the hot X-ray-emitting and cooler optical emission line gas, is currently very limited.
We report on selected results from the most detailed and extensive hydrodynamical study of galactic winds to date, concentrating on the complex relationship between the intrinsic and observable properties of these outflows. We discuss several issues affecting both the interpretation of observations (e.g. the origin of the X-ray emission, on deriving plasma properties from X-ray spectra, and if these observations can quantitatively address the important unknowns about galactic winds) and assessing the success of theoretical modeling of galactic winds (e.g. can current models reproduce the observed properties of winds like M82?).
If the author provided an email address or URL for general inquiries, it is a
s follows:
http://adcam.pha.jhu.edu/~dks/