The Cosmic Microwave Background and the Stellar Initial Mass Function
Astrophysics of Galaxies
2018-09-25 v2
Abstract
We argue that an increased temperature in star-forming clouds alters the stellar initial mass function to be more bottom-light than in the Milky Way. At redshifts , heating from the cosmic microwave background radiation produces this effect in all galaxies, and it is also present at lower redshifts in galaxies with very high star formation rates (SFRs). A failure to account for it means that at present, photometric template fitting likely overestimates stellar masses and star formation rates for the highest-redshift and highest-SFR galaxies. In addition this may resolve several outstanding problems in the chemical evolution of galactic halos.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1809.03502,
title = {The Cosmic Microwave Background and the Stellar Initial Mass Function},
author = {Adam S. Jermyn and Charles L. Steinhardt and Christopher A. Tout},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1809.03502},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
9 pages, 5 figures. Published in MNRAS. Added further references