Related papers: Looking for Systematic Variations in the Stellar I…
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…
As most if not all stars are born in stellar clusters the shape of the mass function of the field stars is not only determined by the initial mass function of stars (IMF) but also by the cluster mass function (CMF). In order to quantify…
A number of recent studies have proposed that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) of early type galaxies varies systematically as a function of galaxy mass, with higher mass galaxies having bottom heavy IMFs. These bottom heavy IMFs…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF), which is often assumed to be universal across unresolved stellar populations, has recently been suggested to be "bottom-heavy" for massive ellipticals. In these galaxies, the prevalence of…
The dependence of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) on star-formation environment, particularly at low metallicities and high redshifts, remains poorly constrained. Ultra-faint dwarf galaxies (UFDs) are local fossils of high-redshift…
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…
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…
An essential component of galaxy formation theory is the stellar initial mass function (IMF), that describes the parent distribution of stellar mass in star forming regions. We present observational evidence in a sample of early-type…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is commonly assumed to be an invariant probability density distribution function of initial stellar masses being represented by the canonical IMF. As a consequence the galaxy-wide IMF (gwIMF), defined…
The study of young stellar populations has revealed that most stars are in binary or higher order multiple systems. In this study the influence on the stellar initial mass function (IMF) of large quantities of unresolved multiple massive…
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…
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.…
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.…
Much of our understanding of modern astrophysics rest on the notion that the Initial Mass Function (IMF) is universal. Our observations of a sample of HI-selected galaxies in the light of H-alpha and the far-ultraviolet (FUV) challenge this…
Evidence supporting the hypothesis of an invariant stellar Initial Mass Function is strong and varied. The intra-cluster medium in rich clusters of galaxies is one of the few contrary locations where recent interpretations of the chemical…
There is substantial evidence that the initial mass function (IMF) may be a function of the local star formation conditions. In particular, the IMF is predicted to flatten with increasing local luminosity density, with the formation of…
We investigate how different stellar initial mass functions (IMFs) can affect the mass loss and survival of star clusters. We find that IMFs with radically different low-mass cut-offs (between 0.1 and 2 Msun) do not change cluster…
We review recent determinations of the present day and initial mass functions in various components of the Galaxy, disk, spheroid, young and globular clusters. As a general feature, the IMF is well described by a power-law form for $m\ga 1…
Cosmological simulations are reaching the resolution necessary to study ultra-faint dwarf galaxies. Observations indicate that in small populations, the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is not fully populated; rather, stars are sampled…
The integrated galaxial initial mass function (IGIMF) is the relevant distribution function containing the information on the distribution of stellar remnants, the number of supernovae and the chemical enrichment history of a galaxy. Since…