Related papers: Evidence of Cosmic Evolution of the Stellar Initia…
Dust is important for star formation because it is the crucial component that couples gas to stellar radiation fields, allowing radiation feedback to influence gas fragmentation and thus the stellar initial mass function (IMF). Variations…
Growing evidence in recent years suggests a systematic variation of the stellar initial mass function (IMF), being top-heavy for starburst galaxies and possibly bottom-heavy for massive ellipticals. Galaxy chemical evolution simulations…
We report on empirical trends between the dynamically determined stellar initial mass function (IMF) and stellar population properties for a complete, volume-limited sample of 260 early-type galaxies from the Atlas3D project. We study…
We investigate the evolution of star formation rates (SFRs), stellar masses, and M/L$_{3.4 \mu m}$ ratios of brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) in the COSMOS survey since z ~ 1 to determine the contribution of star formation to the…
In this contributed talk I present recent results on the connection between stellar population properties and the normalisation of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) measured using stellar dynamics, based on a large sample of 260…
Understanding the processes that determine the stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) is a critical unsolved problem, with profound implications for many areas of astrophysics. In molecular clouds, stars are formed in cores, gas condensations…
One of the key observations regarding the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is its near-universality in the Milky Way (MW), which provides a powerful way to constrain different star formation models that predict the IMF. However, those…
Star counts at high and intermediate galactic latitudes, in the visible and the near infrared, are used to determine the density law and the initial mass function of the thick disc population. The combination of shallow fields dominated by…
Three component models of the IMF are made to consider possible origins for the observed relative variations in the numbers of brown dwarfs, solar-to-intermediate mass stars, and high mass stars. Three distinct physical processes are noted.…
The strength of gravity-sensitive absorption lines in the integrated light of old stellar populations is one of the few direct probes of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) outside of the Milky Way. Owing to the advent of fully depleted…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) determines the relative number of stars born at a given mass. Despite the tremendous effort to establish a universal IMF, the astronomical literature offers a wealth of diverse evidence for IMF…
The birth of stars and the formation of galaxies are cornerstones of modern astrophysics. While much is known about how galaxies globally and their stars individually form and evolve, one fundamental property that affects both remains…
When a detailed model of a stellar population is unavailable, it is most common to assume that stellar masses are independently and identically distributed according to some distribution: the universal initial mass function (IMF). However,…
Interpreting galactic luminosity requires assumptions about the galaxy-wide initial mass function (gwIMF), often assumed invariant in most stellar population synthesis (SPS) models. If stars form in clusters with metallicity- and…
The heavyweight stellar initial mass function (IMF) observed in the cores of massive early-type galaxies (ETGs) has been linked to formation of their cores in an initial swiftly-quenched rapid starburst. However, the outskirts of ETGs are…
In the last decade, growing evidence has emerged supporting a non-universal stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) in massive galaxies, with a larger number of dwarf stars with respect to the Milky-Way (bottom-heavy IMF). However, a consensus…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) describes how many stars form at which mass. Despite recent observational progress, many fundamental properties of the IMF are still unknown. Specifically the question, whether starbursts are biased…
When star clusters are formed at low star-formation rates (SFRs), their stellar initial mass function (IMF) can hardly be filled continuously with stars at each mass. This lack holds for massive stars and is observationally verified by the…
Recent observations of globular clusters (GCs) provide evidence that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) may not be universal, suggesting specifically that the IMF grows increasingly top-heavy with decreasing metallicity and increasing…
It is now well-established that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) can be determined from the absorption line spectra of old stellar systems, and this has been used to measure the IMF and its variation across the early-type galaxy…