Related papers: Origin of a bottom-heavy stellar initial mass func…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) integrated over an entire galaxy is an integral over all separate star-formation events. Since most stars form in star clusters with different masses the integrated IMF becomes an integral of the…
There is mounting evidence that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) could extend much beyond the canonical Mi ~100, Msun limit, but the impact of such hypothesis on the chemical enrichment of galaxies still remains to be clarified. We…
Stars do not form continuously distributed over star forming galaxies. They form in star clusters of different masses. This nature of clustered star formation is taken into account in the theory of the integrated galactic stellar initial…
We perform Jeans anisotropic modeling (JAM) on elliptical and spiral galaxies from the MaNGA DR13 sample. By comparing the stellar mass-to-light ratios estimated from stellar population synthesis (SPS) and from JAM, we find a similar…
The initial mass function (IMF) succinctly characterizes a stellar population, provides a statistical measure of the end result of the star-formation process, and informs our under- standing of the structure and dynamical evolution of…
When star clusters are formed at low star-formation rates (SFRs), their stellar initial mass function (IMF) can hardly be filled continuously with stars at each mass. This lack holds for massive stars and is observationally verified by the…
Given a flurry of recent claims for systematic variations in the stellar initial mass function (IMF), we carry out the first inventory of the observational evidence using different approaches. This includes literature results, as well as…
Because direct measurements require resolved stellar populations including low-mass stars, determining the stellar initial mass function (IMF) has been a historically difficult problem even within our own Galaxy and impossible everywhere…
Many results in modern astrophysics rest on the notion that the Initial Mass Function (IMF) is universal. Our observations of HI selected galaxies in the light of H-alpha and the far-ultraviolet (FUV) challenge this notion. The flux ratio…
In this paper we investigate whether the stellar initial mass function of early-type galaxies depends on their host environment. To this purpose, we have selected a sample of early-type galaxies from the SPIDER catalogue, characterized…
In our previous work, we derive the CR-IGIMF: a new scenario for a variable stellar initial mass function (IMF), which combines numerical results on the role played by cosmic rays in setting the thermal state of star forming gas, with the…
Recent results suggest that the initial mass function (IMF) of globular clusters (GCs) is metallicity and density dependent. Here it is studied how this variation affects the initial masses and the numbers of core collapse supernovae…
The possibility that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) arises mostly from cloud structure is investigated with fractal Brownian motion (fBm) clouds that have power-law power spectra. An fBm cloud with a realistic projected power…
Previous studies of the stellar mean metallicity and [Mg/Fe] values of massive elliptical (E)~galaxies suggest that their stars were formed in a very short timescale which cannot be reconciled with estimates from stellar population…
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…
Systematic variations of the IMF in early-type galaxies, and their connection with possible drivers such as velocity dispersion or metallicity, have been much debated in recent years. Strong lensing over galaxy scales combined with…
(abridged) The stellar initial mass function (IMF) can be conveniently represented as a canonical two-part power law function and is largely invariant for star formation regions evident in the Local Group of galaxies. The IMF is a…
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…
We propose a functional form for the IMF, the L_3 IMF, which is a natural heavy-tailed approximation to the log-normal distribution. It is composed of a low-mass power law and a high mass power-law which are smoothly joined together. Three…
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…