Stellar Wind Feedback

Massive stars are key agents in setting the physical conditions in the interstellar medium in galaxies. On local scales, they rapidly destroy star-forming molecular clouds through their intense radiation, powerful winds, and supernova explosions. Supernova feedback seems to be the dominant of the three mechanisms on galactic scales, but early, pre-SN feedback appears to be responsible for destroying the natal molecular cloud and in limiting the mass of the most massive stars.

The importance of stellar wind feedback is still uncertain. Recent work has shown that turbulent mixing at the interface between the hot shocked stellar wind and surrounding material may strongly cool the hot gas, limiting the strength of this feedback mechanism. You will investigate this process using 3D hydrodynamical simulations. Your calculations will use a state-of-the-art code and make use of high-performance computing facilities at The University of Leeds and potentially elsewhere. You will be able to place new constraints on the importance of turbulent mixing and the effectiveness of stellar wind feedback.