3-04
Maitraiyee Tiwari
University of Maryland
SOFIA FEEDBACK survey: First results and future prospects
The SOFIA legacy project FEEDBACK aims to quantify the radiative and mechanical feedback from stars in the ISM. For this, we plan to map the C+ ([CII]) emission towards 11 massive star-forming regions in our Galaxy. The fine structure line of [CII] is one of the most dominant coolants in the ISM, yielding the radiative energy injection. It also provides the kinematics of the gas exposed to stellar winds, measuring the mechanical energy input. We presented our first results reporting the stellar wind driven shell of the luminous massive star-forming region of RCW 49 (Tiwari et al., 2021). The complementary dataset of the 12CO and 13CO J = 3 - 2 transitions was observed by the APEX telescope and probed the dense gas towards RCW 49. Owing to the high spectrally and spatially resolved data set we obtained using the SOFIA and APEX telescopes, we characterized the shell by finding its size, speed and mass. We quantified and discussed the effects of the stellar wind feedback, which mechanically powers the expansion of the shell of RCW 49. We put forward a 3D representation of the shell as seen by the observer. Furthermore, we discussed the future of star formation in RCW49. I will highlight the importance of sensitive receivers like upGREAT in mapping large areas (100’s to 1000’s square arcmin) with high resolution and how in the future observers will hopefully have access to more sensitive receivers with faster cameras that can efficiently map the entire galaxy in order to perform a larger statistical study of the effects of stellar feedback.
