Related papers: Biases on initial mass function determinations. II…
We present near-infrared $J$, $H$, and $K$ images of four embedded stellar clusters in the Galaxy. We find a significant fraction of pre-main-sequence stars present in at least one of the clusters. For the clusters dominated by…
The stellar masses, mean ages, metallicities, and star formation histories of galaxies are now commonly estimated via stellar population synthesis (SPS) techniques. SPS relies on stellar evolution calculations from the main sequence to…
With the advent of wide-field cosmological surveys, we are approaching samples of hundreds of thousands of galaxy clusters. While such large numbers will help reduce statistical uncertainties, the control of systematics in cluster masses…
We developed a method for a fast modeling of broad-band UBVRI integrated magnitudes of unresolved star clusters and used it to derive their physical parameters (age, mass, and extinction). The method was applied on M33 galaxy cluster sample…
I review efforts to determine the form and any lower limit to the initial mass function in the Galactic disk, using observations of low-mass stars and brown dwarfs in the field, young clusters and star forming regions. I focus on the…
The complexity of constraining the stellar initial mass function (IMF) in early-type galaxies cannot be overstated, given the necessity of both very high signal-to-noise (S/N) data and the difficulty of breaking the strong degeneracies that…
As a young massive cluster in the Central Molecular Zone, the Arches cluster is a valuable probe of the stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) in the extreme Galactic Center environment. We use multi-epoch Hubble Space Telescope observations…
The masses of stars and planets can be measured dynamically in binary systems. For an unresolved binary, time series astrometry yields some orbital parameters, but it cannot provide the component masses, because we observe only the motion…
Statistical sampling from the stellar initial mass function (IMF) for all star-forming regions in the Galaxy would lead to the prediction of ~1000 Msun stars unless there is a rapid turn-down in the IMF beyond several hundred solar masses.…
We study the stellar cluster population in two adjacent fields in the nearby, face-on spiral galaxy, M83, using WFC3/HST imaging. The clusters are selected through visual inspection to be centrally concentrated, symmetric, and resolved on…
Stars form in clustered environments, but how they form when the available resources are shared is still not well understood. A related question is whether the IMF is in fact universal across galactic environments, a galactic initial mass…
Recent studies suggest that filamentary structures are representative of the initial conditions of star formation in molecular clouds and support a filament paradigm for star formation, potentially accounting for the origin of the stellar…
Pre-main sequence (PMS) models provide invaluable tools for the study of star forming regions as they allow to assign masses and ages to young stars. Thus it is of primary importance to test the models against observations of PMS stars with…
The solar neighbourhood is populated by nearby, young moving groups (NYMGs) of stars that are candidates to be remnants of individual stellar clusters and associations, currently dispersing in the galactic disc. To derive the initial mass…
We present the substellar mass function of star-forming clusters ($\simeq$0.1 Myr old) in a low-metallicity environment ($\simeq$$-$0.7 dex). We performed deep JWST/NIRCam and MIRI imaging of two star-forming clusters in Digel Cloud 2, a…
In this paper we perform a comprehensive study of the main sources of random and systematic errors in stellar mass measurement for galaxies using their Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs). We use mock galaxy catalogs with simulated…
We present a new method for deriving the stellar birth function (SBF) of resolved stellar populations. The SBF (stars born per unit mass, time, and metallicity) is the combination of the initial mass function (IMF), the star-formation…
This study is the third of a series that investigates the degeneracy and stochasticity problems present in the determination of physical parameters such as age, mass, extinction, and metallicity of partially resolved or unresolved star…
Peaks and lulls in the star formation rate (SFR) over the history of the Galaxy produce plateaux and declines in the present day mass function (PDMF) where the main-sequence lifetime overlaps the age and duration of the SFR variation. These…
[ABRIDGED] The unconditional mass function (UMF) of dark matter haloes has been determined accurately in the literature, showing excellent agreement with high resolution numerical simulations. However, this is not the case for the…