Investigating Gas Heating Efficiencies at Low Metallicity in the Magellanic Clouds

Feedback from massive stars, in the form of energy deposited into the interstellar medium (ISM) via stellar winds, supernova explosions, and photo-ionization, shapes the surrounding environment and can both inhibit and promote the formation of new stars. To understand galaxy evolution across cosmic time, it is necessary to study the interaction of massive stars with their surrounding ISM in a range of galactic environments, particularly at low metallicity which more closely resembles the early Universe. Owing to their proximity (50-60 kpc) and low-metallicity (0.2-0.5x solar metallicity), the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are ideal targets to study the interaction between massive stars and their surrounding gas. Specifically, we compile SOFIA observations of the 157.7 um fine-structure [CII] line in 14 star-forming regions across the Magellanic Clouds to study the coupling efficiency between far-ultraviolet photons and the ISM. We combine SOFIA observations of [CII] with data from Spitzer and Herschel to derive the [CII]/FIR ratio; a measure of photo-electric heating efficiency. With this measurement, we aim to address two questions: 1) how does the gas heating efficiency vary with stellar environment, and 2) how does gas-heating efficiency vary between low-metallicity star-forming regions and galactic star-forming regions? To address the first question, we will refer to existing catalogs of young stellar objects in the Magellanic Clouds and correlate their positions to our [CII]/FIR measurements. To address the second question, we will compare our measurements to those of the SOFIA FEEDBACK program which observed high-mass star-forming regions in the Milky Way. In this poster, we will show preliminary results on this work.