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D.K. Strickland (JHU)
With an order-of-magnitude increase in spatial resolution over any previous or other current X-ray instrumentation, the Chandra X-ray Observatory is revolutionizing our understanding of the most energetic gas in starburst-driven outflows. I will present Chandra ACIS observations of 6 edge-on starburst galaxies, and 3 starbursting dwarf galaxies. Superwinds are seen most spectacularly in both X-ray and optical H\alpha~emission, and Chandra is showing us that these two phases are closely connected. In many galaxies, over a wide range of physical scales from the central few hundred pc to the larger 10 kpc-scale winds, the X-ray emission appears to arise in low volume filling factor regions in close proximity to the filamentary H\alpha~emission. I shall discuss the implications of this observation with respect to both theoretical models for superwinds, and to the physical processes responsible for X-ray emission from winds. These findings also have major implications for quantifying the role of superwinds in the heating and enrichment of the IGM and assessing their cosmological impact, which I will briefly discuss in conclusion.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: dks@pha.jhu.edu