Relative importance and efficiencies of stellar feedback mechanisms

Determine the relative importance and efficiencies of stellar winds, ionizing radiation, and supernova explosions in regulating star formation and dispersing gas in collapsing giant molecular clouds across a broad range of cloud masses, radii, and metallicities.

Background

The paper investigates how mechanical feedback from young stars (winds and supernovae) interacts with collapsing molecular clouds over a wide parameter space, emphasizing the role of metallicity. Despite recent multi-physics simulations and observational advances, disentangling the relative impact of different feedback channels remains challenging because they act simultaneously and depend sensitively on environment.

The authors focus here on winds and supernovae, deferring radiation feedback to future work. They explicitly note that many questions remain open regarding which mechanisms dominate under which conditions, motivating their controlled 1D modeling as a step toward clarifying the division of roles among feedback processes.

References

Nevertheless, and despite its importance, there are currently still many open questions regarding the relative importance and efficiencies of the different feedback mechanisms.

— The Star Formation Factory revisited I. The impact of metallicity on collapsing star-forming clouds  (2604.00126 - Jiménez et al., 31 Mar 2026) in Introduction (Section 1)

The main and secondary EON bubbles might have been produced by two consecutive feedback events.

— The Neutral Atomic Hydrogen in the solar neighborhood (NeAtHood) project I. Ghost in the shell: Neutral atomic hydrogen in the extended Orion nebula  (2609.02658 - Soler et al., 2 Sep 2026) in Section 3.3, “EON shell substructure”

Pioneering works with ALMA are limited to individual region studies and to the most massive YMCs in them, leaving many open questions about the initial conditions of YMC formation, the integrated star and cluster formation efficiencies, the dominant pre-supernova feedback channels, and the prevalence and reach of cluster-driven outflows.

— The Birth and Early Feedback of Massive Star Clusters Across the Local Universe  (2610.21212 - Sun et al., 15 Oct 2026) in Abstract; Section 1, Scientific Context and Open Questions

Aside from the cluster emergence timescale, it is even less clear which specific pre-supernova feedback channels accomplish the gas clearing, and the extreme conditions under which YMCs form can also alter their relative effectiveness.

— The Birth and Early Feedback of Massive Star Clusters Across the Local Universe  (2610.21212 - Sun et al., 15 Oct 2026) in Section 2.2, Open questions in massive star cluster feedback

It is also debated whether dust-reprocessed radiation pressure becomes important at very high surface densities and/or very early times.

— The Birth and Early Feedback of Massive Star Clusters Across the Local Universe  (2610.21212 - Sun et al., 15 Oct 2026) in Section 2.2, Open questions in massive star cluster feedback