Related papers: The Salpeter Slope of the IMF Explained
(abridged) The {stellar IMF} has been found to be essentially invariant. While some apparent differences are seen, the uncertainties inherent to this game do not allow a firm conclusion to be made that the IMF varies systematically with…
We explore the formation of alpha-enhanced and metal-rich stellar populations in the nuclei of luminous ellipticals under the assumption of two extreme galaxy formation scenarios based on hierarchical clustering, namely a fast clumpy…
Molecular clouds at the Galactic center (GC) have environments considerably different from their disk counterparts. The GC may therefore provide important clues about how the environment affects star formation. Interestingly, while the…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is commonly interpreted to be a scale-invariant probability density distribution function (PDF) such that many small clusters yield the same IMF as one massive cluster of the same combined number of…
We present observational evidence of the correlation between the high-mass slope of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) in young star clusters and their stellar surface density, $\sigma_{*}$. When the high-mass end of the IMF is…
The observed masses of the most massive stars do not surpass about 150Msun. This may either be a fundamental upper mass limit which is defined by the physics of massive stars and/or their formation, or it may simply reflect the increasing…
We review recent advances in our understanding of the origin of the initial mass function (IMF). We emphasize the use of numerical simulations to investigate how each physical process involved in star formation affects the resulting IMF. We…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) describes the distribution in stellar masses produced from a burst of star formation. For more than fifty years, the implicit assumption underpinning most areas of research involving the IMF has been…
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…
The characteristic mass M_c and slope Gamma of the IMF are reviewed for clusters, field regions, galaxies, and regions formed during cosmological times. Local star formation has a somewhat uniform M_c and Gamma. Statistical variations in…
The distribution of stellar masses that form in one star-formation event in a given volume of space is called the initial mass function (IMF). The IMF has been estimated from low-mass brown dwarfs to very massive stars. Combining IMF…
I discuss the formation of alpha-enhanced metal-rich stellar populations in the nuclei of luminous ellipticals. Based on hierarchical clustering, different galaxy formation scenarios, which imply different star formation histories, are…
We review recent high spatial resolution millimeter continuum and spectral line observations of (proto-)cluster regions. These observations reveal that the mass distribution of prestellar cores is consistent with the initial mass function…
We constrain the slope of the star formation rate ($\log\Psi$) to stellar mass ($\log\mathrm{M_{\star}}$) relation down to $\log(\mathrm{M_{\star}/M_{\odot}})=8.4$ ($\log(\mathrm{M_{\star}/M_{\odot}})=9.2$) at $z=0.5$ ($z=2.5$) with a…
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…
When a detailed model of a stellar population is unavailable, it is most common to assume that stellar masses are independently and identically distributed according to some distribution: the universal initial mass function (IMF). However,…
The starburst IMF is probably as much of theoretical interest and practical relevance as it is a subject of observational controversy. In this conference paper we review the most common methods (star counts, dynamical masses, and line…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is a fundamental property of star formation, offering key insight into the physics driving the process as well as informing our understanding of stellar populations, their by-products, and their…
We show that the same initial mass function (IMF) can result from very different modes of star formation from very similar underlying core and/or system mass functions. In particular, we show that the canonical IMF can be recovered from…
A model of core-clump accretion with equally likely stopping describes star formation in the dense parts of clusters, where models of isolated collapsing cores may not apply. Each core accretes at a constant rate onto its protostar, while…