Abstract

Galactic winds are the most dramatic form of feedback provided by massive stars. In the first part of my talk I will summarize the importance of galactic winds for the evolution of galaxies and the inter-galactic medium. I will briefly describe the physical processes that drive these winds, and give a short guided tour of the multi-phase wind driven from the local starburst galaxy M82 . I will then describe how the properties of winds are typically incorporated in cosmological simulations and semi-analytic models. In the second part of my talk I report on recent work that has determined the dependence of the basic wind properties (outflow velocities, mass and momentum outflow rates) on the properties of the galaxy/starburst. These results are strongly at odds with some of the most popular wind prescriptions in simulations and models. In the third part of the talk I will describe observations of the impact of galactic winds on the circum-galactic medium. Finally, I will report on new observations that reveal how stellar feedback, including galactic winds, enabled early star-forming galaxies to re-ionize the universe.