event
Wednesday 05 Jun 2013: Feedback from Winds and Supernovae in Massive Stellar Clusters
Hazel Rogers - University of Leeds
Physics, 4th floor 14:00-15:00
The effect of massive stars on their surroundings are potent and widespread and yet are still poorly understood. Massive stars embedded within molecular clouds likely inhibit further star formation as their winds and ionizing radiation disperse and destroy the remaining molecular gas, although it is possible that the compression of gas in shells could trigger new star formation in some circumstances. Their winds and supernovae chemically enrich the interstellar medium and also help to sustain turbulence within it. I will present some results from 3D hydrodynamical models investigating the effects of massive star feedback from winds and supernovae on inhomogeneous molecular material left over from the formation of a massive stellar cluster. The simulations include the winds from three O-stars, initially contained within a giant molecular cloud clump of radius 4pc. A simple prescription for the evolution of the stars is used, with each star undergoing a main sequence, red supergiant and wolf-rayet phase before exploding as a supernova. I will also present some X-ray calculations and synthetic X-ray images of the cluster as it evolves.
