Galactic Outflows, Star Formation Histories, and Timescales in Starburst Dwarf Galaxies from STARBIRDS

Understand

Winds are predicted to be ubiquitous in low-mass, actively star-forming galaxies.

• Observationally, winds have been detected in relatively few local dwarf galaxies, with even fewer constraints placed on their timescales.
• Here, we compare galactic outflows traced by diffuse, soft X-ray emission from Chandra Space Telescope archival observations to the star formation histories derived from Hubble Space Telescope imaging of the resolved stellar populations in six starburst dwarfs.
• We constrain the longevity of a wind to have an upper limit of 25 Myr based on galaxies whose starburst activity has already declined, although a larger sample is needed to confirm this result.