Related papers: OB Stars in Stochastic Regimes
At the earliest evolutionary stages, massive star-forming regions are deeply embedded within their natal cores and not observable at optical and near-infrared wavelengths. Interferometric high-spatial resolution mm dust continuum…
Despite valiant efforts over nearly five decades, attempts to determine the IMF over a complete mass range for galactic field stars and in open clusters have proved difficult. Infrared imaging observations of extremely young embedded…
In a probabilistic framework of the interpretation of the initial mass function (IMF), the IMF cannot be arbitrarily normalized to the total mass, M, or number of stars, N, of the system. Hence, the inference of M and N when partial…
Observed variations in the IMF are reviewed with an emphasis on environmental density. The remote field IMF studied in the LMC by several authors is clearly steeper than most cluster IMFs, which have slopes close to the Salpeter value.…
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…
We present a combined analysis of the low-mass Initial Mass Function (IMF) for seven star forming regions. We first demonstrate that the ratios of stars to brown dwarfs are consistent with a single underlying IMF. Assuming the underlying…
We review progress in numerical simulations of star cluster formation. These simulations involve the bottom-up assembly of clusters through hierarchical mergers, which produces a fractal stellar distribution at young (~0.5 Myr) ages. The…
Massive stars can be found in wide (hundreds to thousands AU) binaries with other massive stars. We use $N$-body simulations to show that any bound cluster should always have approximately one massive wide binary: one will probably form if…
Recent papers have found that the inferred slope of the high-mass ($>1.5$ M$_\odot$) IMF for field stars in the solar vicinity has a larger value ($\sim 1.7-2.1$) than the slopes ($\sim 1.2-1.7$; Salpeter= 1.35) inferred from numerous…
Observations of normal galactic star-forming regions suggest there is widespread near-uniformity in the initial stellar mass function (IMF) in spite of diverse physical conditions. Fluctuations may come largely from statistical effects and…
We present models for the initial mass function (IMF) for stars forming within molecular clouds. These models use the idea that stars determine their own masses through the action of powerful stellar outflows. This concept allows us to…
Using our recently improved understanding of star cluster physics, we are now within reach of answering a number of fundamental questions in contemporary astrophysics. Star cluster physics has immediate bearing on questions ranging from the…
Here we present a full description of the integrated galaxy-wide initial mass function (IGIMF) theory in terms of the optimal sampling and compare it with available observations. Optimal sampling is the method we use to discretize the IMF…
Most stars are born in rich young stellar clusters (YSCs) embedded in giant molecular clouds. The most massive stars live out their short lives there, profoundly influencing their natal environments by ionizing HII regions, inflating…
The first generations of stars ionised and enriched their host galaxies and seeded the growth of massive black holes. Models often assume that Pop III stellar masses in different minihaloes are stochastic realisations of a single universal…
The spectral absorption lines in early-type galaxies contain a wealth of information regarding the detailed abundance pattern, star formation history, and stellar initial mass function (IMF) of the underlying stellar population. Using our…
The discovery around the turn of the millenium of a population of very massive (M$_\star$ > 2$\times$10$^6$ M$_\odot$) compact stellar systems (CSS) with physical properties (radius, velocity dispersion, stellar mass etc.) that are…
The stellar initial mass function (sIMF) is often treated as a stochastic probability distribution, yet such an interpretation implies Poisson noise that is inconsistent with growing observational evidence. In particular, the observed…
Exact calculations of innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) around rotating strange stars are performed within the framework of general relativity. Equations of state (EOS) of strange quark matter based on the MIT Bag Model with massive…
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…