The SOFIA FEEDBACK [CII] Legacy Survey: Rapid molecular cloud dispersal in RCW 79

Abstract

It has long been discussed whether stellar feedback in the form of winds and/or radiation can shred the nascent molecular cloud, thereby controlling the star formation rate. However, directly probing and quantifying the impact of stellar feedback on the neutral gas of the nascent clouds is challenging. We present an investigation of this impact toward the RCW 79 H II region using the ionized carbon line at 158 μm ([C II]) from the FEEDBACK Legacy Survey. We combine this data with information on the dozen ionizing O stars responsible for the evolution of the region, and observe in [C II] for the first time both blue- and redshifted high-velocity gas that reaches velocities of up to 25 km s−1 relative to the bulk emission of the molecular cloud. This high-velocity gas mostly contains neutral gas, and partly forms a fragmented shell, similar to recently found shells in a few Galactic H II regions. However, this shell does not account for all of the observed neutral high-velocity gas. We also find high-velocity gas streaming out of the nascent cloud through holes, and obtain a range of dynamical timescales below 1.0 Myr for the high-velocity gas that is well below the 2.3 ± 0.5 Myr age of the OB cluster. This suggests a different scenario for the evolution of RCW 79, where the high-velocity gas does not solely stem from a spherical expanding bubble, but also from gas recently ablated at the edge of the turbulent molecular cloud into the surrounding interstellar medium through low-pressure holes or chimneys. The resulting mass ejection rate estimate for the cloud is 0.9–3.5 × 10−2 M⊙ yr−1, which leads to short erosion timescales (< 5 Myr) for the nascent molecular cloud. This finding provides direct observational evidence of rapid molecular cloud dispersal.