Related papers: On the Origin of the Salpeter Slope for the Initia…
Oxygen to iron abundance ratios of metal-poor stars provide information on nucleosynthesis yields from massive stars which end in Type II supernova explosions. Using a standard model of chemical evolution of the Galaxy we have reproduced…
The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way plays host to a massive, young cluster that may have formed in one of the most inhospitable environments in the Galaxy. We present new measurements of the global properties of this…
We derive an analytical theory of the prestellar core initial mass function based on an extension of the Press-Schechter statistical formalism. With the same formalism, we also obtain the mass spectrum for the non self-gravitating clumps…
I track the history of star count estimates of the Milky Way field star and open cluster IMFs, concentrating on the neglected mass range from 1 to 15 M${_\odot}$. The prevalent belief in a universal IMF appears to be without basis for this…
The manner in which the stellar initial mass function (IMF) scales with global galaxy properties is under debate. We use two hydrodynamical, cosmological simulations to predict possible trends for two self-consistent variable IMF…
Globular clusters display an anticorrelation between the fraction of the first generation of stars ($N({\rm G1})/N({\rm tot})$) and the slope of the present-day mass function of the clusters ($\alpha_{pd}$), which is particularly…
It is frequently debated in literature whether a "standard" Initial Mass Function (IMF) - meaning an IMF of the kind usually adopted to explain the chemical evolution in the local Solar Neighbourhood - can account for the observed metal…
We perform a direct comparison of two state-of-the art single stellar population (SSP) models that have been used to demonstrate the non-universality of the low-mass end of the Initial Mass Function (IMF) slope. The two public versions of…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is among the most fundamental distributions in astrophysics, defined as the mass spectrum of stars produced in a single star-formation event. Even in the solar neighbourhood, where measurements can be…
The current knowledge on the stellar IMF is documented. It appears to become top-heavy when the star-formation rate density surpasses about 0.1Msun/(yr pc^3) on a pc scale and it may become increasingly bottom-heavy with increasing…
The mass function (MF) of young ($\mathrm{age\lesssim 200}$ Myr) stellar clumps is an indicator of the mechanism driving the collapse of the interstellar medium (ISM) into giant molecular clouds. Typically, the clump MF in main-sequence…
Star formation in the early Universe has left its imprint on the chemistry of observable stars in galaxies. We derive elemental abundances and the slope of the low-mass end of the initial mass function (IMF) for a sample of 25 very massive…
We propose that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is universal in the sense that its functional form arises as a consequence of the statistics of random supersonic flows. A model is developed for the origin of the stellar IMF, that…
Using deep HST/ACS observations, we demonstrate that the sub-solar stellar initial mass function (IMF) of 6 ultra-faint dwarf Milky Way Satellites (UFDs) is more bottom light than the IMF of the Milky Way disk. Our data have a lower mass…
Recent studies seem to suggest that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) in early-type galaxies might be different from a classical Kroupa or Chabrier IMF, i.e. contain a larger fraction of the total mass in low-mass stars. From a…
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…
The combination of a finite time-scale for star formation, rapid early stellar evolution and rapid stellar-dynamical processes imply that the stellar IMF cannot be inferred for any star cluster independently of its age (the Cluster IMF…
We present the new technique for the determination of the low-mass slope of the stellar mass function from the pixel-space fitting of integrated light spectra. This technique is the extension of the NBursts full spectral fitting technique.…
We use numerical simulations of the fragmentation of a 1000 solar mass molecular cloud and the formation of a stellar cluster to study how the initial conditions for star formation affect the resulting initial mass function (IMF). In…
(Abridged) Accurate luminosity functions (LF) for a dozen globular clusters have now been measured at or just beyond their half-light radius using HST. They span almost the entire cluster main sequence below ~ 0.75 Msolar. All these…