Tracing feedback in massive star-forming regions with KMOS

Massive stars strongly influence their immediate surroundings during their lifetimes (via e.g. protostellar jets, strong stellar winds, ionising radiation, supernovae). On larger scales, feedback from massive stars regulates the formation and evolution of entire stellar clusters and dominates the mass and energy cycle in star-forming galaxies like the Milky Way. Qualitatively, the effect of massive stars on their environment is well understood, but a solid quantitative, observational analysis is still missing. The results of recent KMOS observations of a variety of feedback-driven structures and environments within massive star-forming regions will be shown.  With these KMOS mosiacs as a template, I will discuss the advantages (and caveats) of integral field spectroscopy in tracing and quantifying feedback from massive stars.