CAREER: The Physics of Stellar Feedback and Star Formation Regulation in Galaxies

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

The team will study why stars form so slowly and inefficiently in galaxies. They will model key "feedback" effects, like how young stars blast their surroundings with intense light. The team will add the models to new simulations of how stars form. These simulations will have much more realism than prior ones. Senior team members will mentor junior members. The latter will include undergraduates from universities in Puerto Rico and Hispanic-serving universities in California. The team will showcase their research at science museums in Puerto Rico and in high school classrooms in the Chicago area. The team will investigate how stellar feedback operates and how it regulates star formation in galaxies. Their goals are to (1) reveal how interstellar turbulence and galactic winds are generated; (2) investigate the effects of time-dependent molecular chemistry on the interstellar medium, star formation, and outflows; (3) quantify the effects of self-consistent radiation-hydrodynamics on radiative feedback and observational tracers; (4) study the effects of magnetic fields and cosmic rays on the interstellar medium and galactic winds; (5) synthesize the results into a generalized analytic theory of star formation regulation and outflows; (6) develop new, more predictive sub-grid models to capture these processes in fully cosmological galaxy evolution models; and (7) release mock data products for comparison with current and future observations.