Related papers: The Stellar Initial Mass Function at the Epoch of …
The WMAP satellite has measured a large optical depth to electron scattering after cosmological recombination of 0.17+-0.04, implying significant reionization of the primordial gas only ~200 million years after the big bang. However, the…
We present constraints on the stellar initial mass function (IMF) in two ultra-faint dwarf (UFD) galaxies, Hercules and Leo IV, based on deep HST/ACS imaging. The Hercules and Leo IV galaxies are extremely low luminosity (M_V = -6.2, -5.5),…
We investigate the effects of a top-heavy stellar initial mass function on the reionisation history of the intergalactic medium (IGM). We use cosmological simulations that include self-consistently the feedback from ionising radiation, H_2…
Recent observations have gathered a considerable sample of high redshift galaxy candidates and determined the evolution of their luminosity function (LF). To interpret these findings, we use cosmological SPH simulations including, in…
We explore the assumption, widely used in many astrophysical calculations, that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is universal across all galaxies. By considering both a canonical Salpeter-like IMF and a non-universal IMF, we are able…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) describes the mass distribution of stars at the time of their formation and is of fundamental importance for many areas of astrophysics. The IMF is reasonably well constrained in the disk of the Milky…
Measurements of the ionisation state of the intergalactic medium (IGM) can probe the sources of the extragalactic ionising background. We provide new measurements of the ionising emissivity of galaxies using measurements of the ionising…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is a fundamental property of star formation, offering key insight into the physics driving the process as well as informing our understanding of stellar populations, their by-products, and their…
(Abridged) We review recent observations that suggest the star formation rate density is declining over 3$<z<$7 and illustrate the challenges that this poses in explaining the assembled stellar mass in z$\sim$6 galaxies deduced from Spitzer…
As observations have yet to constrain the ionizing properties of the faintest (M$_{\rm UV}$ > -16) galaxies, their contribution to cosmic reionization remains unclear. The rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) continuum slope ($\beta$) is a powerful…
We use a large set of hydrodynamical simulations, combined with measurements of the Lyman alpha opacity of the IGM taken from the literature, to obtain robust estimates for the photoionization rate per hydrogen atom at z=5 and 6. We find…
The evolution of HII regions/supershells can trigger a new generation of stars/clusters at their peripheries, with environmental conditions that may affect the initial mass function, disk evolution and star formation efficiency. In this…
We present a new measurement of the integrated stellar mass per comoving volume at redshift 5 determined via spectral energy fitting drawn from a sample of 214 photometrically-selected galaxies with z'<26.5 in the southern GOODS field.…
To investigate possible variations in the stellar initial mass function (IMF) in red-sequence galaxies, we have obtained infrared spectroscopy with Subaru/FMOS for a sample of 92 red-sequence galaxies in the Coma cluster. Velocity…
(... abridged) The observed luminosity function can be constructed in a range of absolute integrated magnitudes $I_{M_V}= [-10, -0.5]$ mag, i.e. about 5 magnitudes deeper than in the most nearby galaxies. It increases linearly from the…
We perform a spectroscopic study to constrain the stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) by using a large sample of 24,781 early-type galaxies from the SDSS-based SPIDER survey. Clear evidence is found of a trend between IMF and central…
The birth and death of the first generation of stars have important implications for the thermal state and chemical properties of the intergalactic medium (IGM) in the early universe. Sometime after recombination, the neutral, chemically…
Context: The shape of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) of a star cluster near its upper mass limit is a focal topic of investigation as it determines the high mass stellar content and hence the dynamics of the cluster at its embedded…
The galaxy-wide stellar initial mass function (IGIMF) of a galaxy is thought to depend on its star formation rate (SFR). Using a catalogue of observational properties of early-type galaxies (ETGs) and a relation that correlates the…
We use a sample of rest-frame UV selected and spectroscopically observed galaxies at redshifts 1.9<z<3.4, combined with ground-based spectroscopic H-alpha and Spitzer MIPS 24 micron data, to derive the most robust measurements of the…