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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zheng, Yong, Tchernyshyov, Kirill, Olsen, Knut, Choi, Yumi, Bustard, Chad, Roman-Duval, Julia, Zhu, Robert, Di Teodoro, Enrico M., Werk, Jessica, Putman, Mary, McLeod, Anna F., Faerman, Yakov, Simons, Raymond C., Peek, Joshua
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.04313
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Table of Contents:
  • The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is home to many HII regions, which may lead to significant outflows. We examine the LMC's multiphase gas ($T\sim10^{4-5}$ K) in HI, SII, SiIV, and CIV using 110 stellar sight lines from the HST's Ultraviolet Legacy Library of Young Stars as Essential Standards (ULLYSES) program. We develop a continuum fitting algorithm based on the concept of Gaussian Process regression and identify reliable LMC interstellar absorption over $v_{\rm helio}=175-375$ km s$^{-1}$. Our analyses show disk-wide ionized outflows in SiIV and CIV across the LMC with bulk velocities of $|v_{\rm out, bulk}|\sim20-60$ km s$^{-1}$, which indicates that most of the outflowing mass is gravitationally bound. The outflows' column densities correlate with the LMC's star formation rate surface densities ($Σ_{\rm SFR}$), and the outflows with higher $Σ_{\rm SFR}$ tend to be more ionized. Considering outflows from both sides of the LMC as traced by CIV, we conservatively estimate a total outflow rate of $\dot{M}_{\rm out}\gtrsim 0.03~M_\odot {\rm yr}^{-1}$ and a mass loading factor of $η\gtrsim 0.15$. We compare the LMC's outflows with those detected in starburst galaxies and simulation predictions, and find a universal scaling relation of $|v_{\rm out, bulk}|\propto Σ_{\rm SFR}^{0.23}$ over a wide range of star-forming conditions ($Σ_{\rm SFR}\sim10^{-4.5}-10^{2}~M_\odot {\rm yr}^{-1} {\rm kpc}^{-2}$). Lastly, we find that the outflows are co-rotating with the LMC's young stellar disk and the velocity field does not seem to be significantly impacted by external forces; we thus speculate on the existence of a bow shock leading the LMC, which may have shielded the outflows from ram pressure as the LMC orbits the Milky Way.