CAREER: Chemical Enrichment: A Component of Massive Star Feedback Processes

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Proposal ID: AST-0239321Institution: Lowell ObservatoryPI: Oey, SallyDr. Sally Oey will use her CAREER award at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, to model the feedback processes - mechanical, radiative, and chemical - from massive stars. Mechanical feedback and galactic outflows are a critical unknown in models of galaxy evolution, the interstellar medium, the intergalactic medium (IGM), and cosmic evolution. Radiative feedback controls vital nebular diagnostics of star-formation and the escape fraction of ionizing photons from galaxies, central to understanding the ionization of the universe. Chemical feedback controls the fundamental chemical signatures of galaxy evolution, enrichment of the IGM, and cosmic chemical evolution. Building on her combination of observational and theoretical work that has so far successfully integrated the parameterization of mechanical and radiative feedback, this award will allow her to fully include chemical feedback as well. This research program will also supply a broad science base from which Dr. Oey will draw material for Lowell Observatory's public outreach programs. This material will nicely complement their dominant science strengths, which have long been in the areas of solar system and low-mass stars. Dr. Oey will expand and update the outreach programs to include Galactic and extragalactic science, with an emphasis on LOPARC, Lowell's 16-in telescope for public science activities, and LEARN, their electronic newsletter. In addition to these public outreach efforts, she will continue working with students in K-12 and higher education.