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Parsec-scale X-ray flows in high-mass star-forming regions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2005

L. K. Townsley ,
P. S. Broos ,
E. D. Feigelson  and
G. P. Garmire
L. K. Townsley
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, 525 Davey Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA email: townsley@astro.psu.edu, patb@astro.psu.edu, edf@astro.psu.edu, garmire@astro.psu.edu
P. S. Broos
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, 525 Davey Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA email: townsley@astro.psu.edu, patb@astro.psu.edu, edf@astro.psu.edu, garmire@astro.psu.edu
E. D. Feigelson
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, 525 Davey Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA email: townsley@astro.psu.edu, patb@astro.psu.edu, edf@astro.psu.edu, garmire@astro.psu.edu
G. P. Garmire
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, 525 Davey Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA email: townsley@astro.psu.edu, patb@astro.psu.edu, edf@astro.psu.edu, garmire@astro.psu.edu
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Abstract

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The Chandra X-ray Observatory is providing remarkable new views of massive star-forming regions, revealing all stages in the life cycle of high-mass stars and their effects on their surroundings. We present a Chandra tour of several high-mass star-forming regions, highlighting physical processes that characterize the life of a cluster of high-mass stars, from deeply-embedded cores too young to have established an HII region to superbubbles so large that they shape our views of galaxies. Along the way we see that X-ray observations reveal hundreds of stellar sources powering great HII region complexes, suffused by both hard and soft diffuse X-ray structures caused by fast O-star winds thermalized in wind-wind collisions or by termination shocks against the surrounding media. Finally, we examine the effects of the deaths of high-mass stars that remained close to their birthplaces, exploding as supernovae within the superbubbles that these clusters created. We present new X-ray results on W51 IRS2E and 30 Doradus and we introduce new data on Trumpler 14 in Carina and the W3 HII region complexes W3 Main and W3(OH).