Our results suggest that the kinetic energy provided to the ISM by the stars through stellar winds cannot account for the observed temperature fluctuations in NGC 2363. This result holds even if a thermalization efficiency of 100% is assumed; however, the comparison of the observed kinetic energy with the theoretical estimate of the wind kinetic energy suggest that such efficiency is rather low. These results confirm the conclusion drawn by Binette et al. (2001), and leave the question of the nature of energy source of temperature fluctuations open. New insights into the problem could possibly come from the use of stellar tracks with rotation, and the consideration of a temperature-fluctuation pattern radically different from the one used in the present work.
Acknowledgements
V. L. acknowledges the Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées de Toulouse for providing facilities during the first stage of this research. The work of LB was supported by the CONACyT grant 32139-E. The authors are also grateful to Manuel Peimbert for several excellent suggestions, and to the referee for critically reading the paper, and making useful comments. This research has made use of NASA's Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service.
Copyright ESO 2001