Conditions for supernovae-driven galactic winds

Abstract

We point out that the commonly assumed condition for galactic outflows, that supernovae (SNe) heating is efficient in the central regions of starburst galaxies, suffers from invalid assumptions. We show that a large filling factor of hot (≥106 K) gas is difficult to achieve through SNe heating, irrespective of the SN's initial gas temperature and density, its uniformity, or its clumpiness. We instead suggest that correlated supernovae from OB associations in molecular clouds in the central region can drive powerful outflows if the molecular surface density is >103 M ⊙ pc-2. © 2013. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.