Dartmouth Events

Abstract: Stellar feedback drives winds and outflows critical to the baryon cycles in low-mass galaxies. With shallow gravitational potential wells, low-mass galaxies are particularly susceptible to mass and metal loss due to stellar feedback-driven outflows, which can significantly impact their properties and evolution. In this talk, I will present the analysis of new optical imaging and spectroscopy from the WIYN 3.5m telescope of the dwarf galaxy NGC 3741 to explore the impacts of stellar feedback on the interstellar medium in low-mass galaxies. Through comparing the galaxy’s ionized gas morphologies and kinematics with archival observations of the neutral hydrogen gas and local star formation histories derived from resolved HST photometry, we determine that stellar feedback does not result in significant mass loss in NGC 3741. This study of NGC 3741 serves as the pilot of a larger study searching for stellar feedback driven outflows in a sample of ~40 nearby low-mass galaxies. Future analysis of the larger sample will allow us to explore how stellar feedback impacts mass loss on local scales, providing a deeper understanding of the interplay between stellar feedback and the interstellar medium in low-mass galaxies.

Hosted by PhD Graduate Student George Dufresne