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Cold gas outflows from the Small Magellanic Cloud traced with ASKAP
Citation
McClure-Griffiths, NM and Denes, H and Dickey, JM and Stanimirovic, S and Staveley-Smith, L and Jameson, K and Di Teodoro, E and Allison, JR and Collier, JD and Chippendale, AP and Franzen, T and Gurkan, G and Heald, G and Hotan, A and Kleiner, D and Lee-Waddell, K and McConnell, D and Popping, A and Rhee, J and Riseley, CJ and Voronkov, MA and Whiting, M, Cold gas outflows from the Small Magellanic Cloud traced with ASKAP, Nature Astronomy, 2, (11) pp. 901-906. ISSN 2397-3366 (2018) [Refereed Article]
Copyright Statement
Copyright 2018 Springer Nature
DOI: doi:10.1038/s41550-018-0608-8
Abstract
Feedback from massive stars plays a critical part in the evolution of the Universe by driving powerful outflows from galaxies that enrich the intergalactic medium and regulate star formation. An important source of outflows may be the most numerous galaxies in the Universe: dwarf galaxies. With small gravitational potential wells, these galaxies easily lose their star-forming material in the presence of intense stellar feedback. Here, we show that a nearby dwarf galaxy - the Small Magellanic Cloud - has atomic hydrogen outflows extending at least 2 kiloparsecs from the star-forming bar of the galaxy. The outflows are cold (< 400 K) and may have formed during a period of active star formation 25-60 Myr ago. The total mass of atomic gas in the outflow is about 107 solar masses (that is, about 3 per cent of the total atomic gas of the galaxy). The inferred mass flux in atomic gas alone, ṀH I ≈ 0.2-1.0 solar masses per year, is up to one order of magnitude greater than the star-formation rate. We suggest that most of the observed outflow will be stripped from the Small Magellanic Cloud through its interaction with its companion, the Large Magellanic Cloud, and the Milky Way, feeding the Magellanic Stream of hydrogen encircling the Milky Way.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | radio astronomy |
| Research Division: | Physical Sciences |
| Research Group: | Astronomical sciences |
| Research Field: | Galactic astronomy |
| Objective Division: | Expanding Knowledge |
| Objective Group: | Expanding knowledge |
| Objective Field: | Expanding knowledge in the physical sciences |
| UTAS Author: | Dickey, JM (Professor John Dickey) |
| ID Code: | 133226 |
| Year Published: | 2018 |
| Web of Science® Times Cited: | 24 |
| Deposited By: | Mathematics and Physics |
| Deposited On: | 2019-06-19 |
| Last Modified: | 2019-08-13 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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