Strength of Stellar Feedback Effects on GMC Populations

Determine how strongly stellar feedback affects the properties and population statistics of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in star-forming disk galaxies.

Background

The paper contrasts feedback-regulated and turbulence-regulated theories of star formation, noting extensive observational support for feedback impacting the interstellar medium and molecular clouds. However, some simulation studies have suggested feedback may be too weak to significantly affect GMCs, often omitting key processes such as photo-ionization, stellar winds, and radiation pressure.

Motivated by these tensions, the authors set the goal of quantitatively reassessing the effectiveness of stellar feedback on GMCs within a realistic galactic context and explicitly identify the need to establish how strongly feedback influences GMC properties and populations.

References

Another open question, related to what controls the SFR, involves how strongly stellar feedback affects the properties and populations of GMCs.

— Playing with FIRE: A Galactic Feedback-Halting Experiment Challenges Star Formation Rate Theories  (2406.18526 - Khullar et al., 2024) in Section 1 (Introduction)

Our observed cSMF still remains unconstrained for low-mass clumps. For stellar masses below the completeness limit ($\sim 108\,M_\odot$), the fate of these clumps is unclear. Low-mass clumps ($\lesssim 107\,M_\odot$) could either grow in mass similarly to the intermediate- ($\sim 107$ to $109\,M_\odot$) and high-mass clumps ($\gtrsim 109\,M_\odot$) or they might be destroyed soon after formation by internal stellar feedback and tidal forces in the host galaxy.

— Physical properties of star-forming clumps in nearby galaxies from CLAUDS and HSC-SSP  (2609.20079 - Popp et al., 17 Sep 2026) in Section 4.1, subsection “Clump stellar mass function”