Schneider

CGOLS-MW: an exascale simulation of the Milky Way's outflow

Galactic winds driven by supernovae are commonly accepted to be an integral part of a galaxy's life cycle. However, the efficiency with which outflows can remove mass and energy from a galaxy is likely a strong function of galaxy mass. Common scalings suggest that mass loss due to supernova-driven outflows should be much less efficient at Milky Way masses than in smaller galaxies, however, the computational power required to actually resolve this process has typically prohibited detailed simulations on galaxy scales. In this talk, I will present our recent efforts to model a Milky Way mass galaxy (and its outflow) at a constant, 5 pc resolution, sufficient to capture the hot winds driven by supernovae, as well as the fountain-like structure of cooler gas at the disk-halo interface. This simulation suggests that while indeed mass loss at this scale is inefficient, star formation may still be capable of driving powerful hot outflows sufficient to suppress significant accretion.