Filaments in Galactic Winds Driven by Young Stellar Clusters

Abstract

The starburst galaxy M82 shows a system of H$\alpha$-emitting filaments which extend to each side of the galactic disk. We model these filaments as the result of the interaction between the winds from a distribution of Super Stellar Clusters (SSCs). We first derive the condition necessary for producing a radiative interaction between the cluster winds (a condition which is met by the SSC distribution of M82). We then compute 3D simulations for SSC wind distributions which satisfy the condition for a radiative interaction, and also for distributions which do not satisfy this condition. We find that the highly radiative models, that result from the interaction of high metallicity cluster winds, produce a structure of H$\alpha$ emitting filaments, which qualitatively agrees with the observations of the M82, while the non-radiative SSC wind interaction models do not produce filamentary structures. Therefore, our criterion for radiative interactions (which depends on the mass loss rate and the terminal velocity of the SSC winds, and the mean separation between SSCs) can be used to predict whether or not an observed galaxy should have associated H$\alpha$ emitting filaments.

10 pages, 6 Figures. ApJ Accepted, August 7, 2008

References in corpus (6)

• GALEX Observations of the Ultraviolet Halos of NGC 253 and M82
• Young Super Star Clusters in the Starburst of M82: The Catalogue
• Gemini GMOS/IFU spectroscopy of NGC 1569 - I: Mapping the properties of a young star cluster and its environment
• Studying the galactic outflow in NGC 1569
• On the Extreme Positive Feedback Star-Forming Mode from Massive and Compact Superstar Clusters
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