Making top-heavy IMFs from canonical IMFs near the Galactic Centre
Astrophysics of Galaxies
2020-03-18 v1
Abstract
We show that dynamical evolution in a strong (Galactic Centre-like) tidal field can create clusters that would appear to have very top-heavy IMFs. The tidal disruption of single star forming events can leave several bound `clusters' spread along 20 pc of the orbit within 1-2 Myr. These surviving (sub)clusters tend to contain an over-abundance of massive stars, with low-mass stars tending to be spread along the whole `tidal arm'. Therefore observing a cluster in a strong tidal field with a top-heavy IMF might well not mean the stars formed with a top-heavy IMF.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2003.02965,
title = {Making top-heavy IMFs from canonical IMFs near the Galactic Centre},
author = {So-Myoung Park and Simon P. Goodwin and Sungsoo S. Kim},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.02965},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
8 pages, 6 figures, accepted in MNRAS