CCA Colloquium: Laura Lopez

Title: The Importance and Challenges of Assessing Stellar Feedback

Abstract: Massive stars have a profound astrophysical influence on the interstellar medium (ISM) throughout their tumultuous lives and deaths. Stellar feedback occurs through a variety of mechanisms: e.g., radiation, photoionization heating, winds, protostellar jets, supernovae, and cosmic rays. Despite its importance, stellar feedback is cited as one of the biggest uncertainties in astrophysics today, stemming from a need for observational constraints and the challenges of considering many feedback modes simultaneously. In this talk, I will discuss recent studies of feedback from the small scales of individual star clusters to the large scales of starburst-driven outflows. By comparing multiwavelength observations (including new JWST data) to theoretical models, I will present constraints on different feedback modes and on galactic winds.