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Residual-gas expulsion after cluster formation has recently been shown to leave an imprint in the low-mass present-day stellar mass function (PDMF) which allowed the estimation of birth conditions of some Galactic globular clusters (GCs)…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-04 Michael Marks , Pavel Kroupa , Jörg Dabringhausen , Marcel S. Pawlowski

One of the key observations regarding the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is its near-universality in the Milky Way (MW), which provides a powerful way to constrain different star formation models that predict the IMF. However, those…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2018-04-25 David Guszejnov , Philip F. Hopkins , Xiangcheng Ma

Two varieties of the universal stellar initial mass function (IMF) viz., the Kroupa and the Chabrier IMF, have emerged over the last decade to explain the observed distribution of stellar masses. The possibility of the universal nature of…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-05 S. Anathpindika

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…

Astrophysics · Physics 2008-11-26 Gilles Chabrier

We derive a semi-empirical galactic initial mass function (IMF) from observational constraints. We assume that the star formation rate in a galaxy can be expressed as the product of the IMF, $\psi (m)$, which is a smooth function of mass…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-05-20 Antonio Parravano , Christopher F. McKee , David J. Hollenbach

Observations have not yielded convincing results concerning the form of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) or its variations in space and time, so it is proposed that theoretical models may provide useful guidance. Several classes of…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-09-25 John Scalo

The measured star-formation rates (SFRs) of galaxies comprise an important constraint on galaxy evolution and also on their cosmological boundary conditions. Any available tracer of the SFR depends on the shape of the mass-distribution of…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2021-12-22 Pavel Kroupa , Tereza Jerabkova

In the solar neighborhood, the Initial Mass Function (IMF) follows is canonically described by the Salpeter power-law slope for the high-mass range. The stellar IMF may directly result from a Core Mass Function (CMF) through accretion,…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-05-06 B. Thomasson , I. Joncour , E. Moraux , F. Motte , T. Yoo , A. Ginsburg

We develop a statistical approach for description of dense structures (cores) in molecular clouds that might be progenitors of stars. Our basic assumptions are a core mass-density relationship and a power-law density distribution of these…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2012-06-08 Sava Donkov , Orlin Stanchev , Todor V. Veltchev

The stellar initial mass function (IMF) of early-type galaxies is the combination of the IMF of the stellar population formed in-situ and that of accreted stellar populations. Using as an observable the effective IMF $\alpha_{IMF}$, defined…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-01-18 Alessandro Sonnenfeld , Carlo Nipoti , Tommaso Treu

Few topics in astronomy initiate such vigorous discussion as whether or not the initial mass function (IMF) of stars is universal, or instead sensitive to the initial conditions of star formation. The distinction is of critical importance:…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-05-18 Nate Bastian , Kevin R. Covey , Michael R. Meyer

The mass function of clumps observed in molecular clouds raises interesting theoretical issues, especially in its relation to the stellar initial mass function. We propose a statistical model of the mass function of prestellar cores (CMF),…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-03-18 S. Donkov , T. V. Veltchev , Ph. Girichidis , R. S. Klessen

(abridged) We develop a model which describes the coevolution of the mass function of dense cores and of the IMF in a protocluster clump. In the model, cores injected in the clump evolve under the effect of gas accretion. Accretion onto the…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-05-14 Sami Dib , Mohsen Shadmehri , Paolo Padoan , G. Maheswar , D. K. Ojha , Fazeleh Khajenabi

A universal stellar initial mass function (IMF) should not be expected from theoretical models of star formation, but little conclusive observational evidence for a variable IMF has been uncovered. In this paper, a parameterization of the…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2022-06-01 Albert Sneppen , Charles L. Steinhardt , Hagan Hensley , Adam S. Jermyn , Basel Mostafa , John R. Weaver

Recent observational and theoretical studies indicate that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) varies systematically with the environment (star formation rate - SFR, metallicity). Although the exact dependence of the IMF on those…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-04-08 Martyna Chruslinska , Tereza Jerabkova , Gijs Nelemans , Zhiqiang Yan

We examine the initial mass functions (IMFs) of stars produced by different molecular core mass functions. Simulations suggest that more massive cores produce more stars, so we propose a model in which the average number of stars formed in…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 Simon P. Goodwin , A. P. Whitworth , D. Ward-Thompson

We investigate the relation of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) and the dense core mass function (CMF), using stellar masses and positions in 14 well-studied young groups. Initial column density maps are computed by replacing each…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2011-06-24 Manon Michel , Helen Kirk , Philip C. Myers

We explore the stellar initial mass function (IMF) of a sample of 49 massive quiescent galaxies (MQGs) at 0.9$<$z$<$1.5. We base our analysis on intermediate resolution spectro-photometric data in the GOODS-N field taken in the…

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…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-13 M. Andersen , M. R. Meyer , J. Greissl , A. Aversa

The stellar initial mass function is of great significance for the study of star formation and galactic structure. Observations indicate that the IMF follows a power-law form. This work derived that when the expected number of stars formed…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-03-20 Yu-Fu Shen