Le vent nous portera...towards a better understanding of galaxies

Max Gronke

UC Santa Barbara

Galactic winds are large-scale, multiphase outflows from galaxies and crucial for the galactic ecosystem. They are, thus, a potent probe for the underlying feedback mechanisms. However, these winds are still not well understood theoretically. One main issue is that reproducing this phenomenon in hydrodynamical simulations has proven to be challenging - simply because the destruction time (equal to the Kelvin-Helmholtz timescale) is shorter than the time it takes to accelerate the cold gas. During my talk, I will show some analytical estimates and results from recent (magneto-)hydrodynamics simulations which suggest a solution to this classical "entrainment problem". I will conclude by discussing potential implications for larger scale galactic simulations, and potential observables of cold gas in the surroundings of galaxies.