Related papers: Constraining the primordial initial mass function …
In the star formation process, the vital impact of environmental factors such as feedback from massive stars and stellar density on the form of the initial mass function (IMF) at low-mass end is yet to be understood. Hence a systematic,…
We obtain constraints on the slope of a universal stellar initial mass function (IMF) over a range of cosmic star-formation histories (SFH) using z=0.1 luminosity densities in the range from 0.2 to 2.2 microns. The age-IMF degeneracy of…
With the first metal enrichment by Population (Pop) III supernovae (SNe), the formation of the first metal-enriched, Pop II stars becomes possible. In turn, Pop III star formation and early metal enrichment are slowed by the high energy…
Understanding the processes that determine the stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) is a critical unsolved problem, with profound implications for many areas of astrophysics. In molecular clouds, stars are formed in cores, gas condensations…
We investigate the formation of extremely metal-poor (EMP) stars that are observed in the Galactic halo and neighboring ultra-faint dwarf galaxies. Their low metal abundances (${\rm [Fe/H]} < -3$) indicate that their parent clouds were…
One of the most robust observations of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is its near-universality in the Milky Way and neighboring galaxies. But recent observations of early-type galaxies can be interpreted to imply a bottom-heavy…
Classical theories for the stellar initial mass function (IMF) predict a peak mass which scales with the properties of the molecular cloud. In this work, we explore a new theory proposed by Lee & Hennebelle (2018). The idea is that the…
We present a new technique for the determination of the low-mass slope ($\alpha_1$; $M_* < 0.5 M_{\odot}$) of the present day stellar mass function (PDMF) using the pixel space fitting of integrated light spectra. It can be used to…
We perform a spectroscopic study to constrain the stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) by using a large sample of 24,781 early-type galaxies from the SDSS-based SPIDER survey. Clear evidence is found of a trend between IMF and central…
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…
Observations of both galaxies in the distant Universe and local starbursts are showing increasing evidence for very hard ionizing spectra that stellar population synthesis models struggle to reproduce. Here we explore the effects of the…
Recent data from the James Webb Space Telescope suggest that there are realistic prospects for detecting the earliest generation of stars at redshift ~20. These metal-poor, gaseous Population III (Pop III) stars are likely in the mass range…
The first generation of stars, Population III (Pop III), is believed to be massive, with some potentially having masses in the range 140 M$_\odot$ to 270 M$_\odot$ and capable of exploding as a pair-instability supernova (PISN). Such events…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) plays a crucial role in determining the number of surviving stars in galaxies, the chemical composition of the interstellar medium, and the distribution of light in galaxies. A key unsolved question…
Recent work has suggested that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is not universal, but rather is correlated with galaxy stellar mass, stellar velocity dispersion, or morphological type. In this paper, we investigate variations of the…
Recent numerical simulations of the fragmentation of primordial molecular clouds in hierarchical cosmogonies have suggested that the very first stars (the so-called Population III) may have been rather massive. Here we point out that a…
The INSPIRE project has built the largest sample of ultra-compact massive galaxies (UCMGs) at 0.1<z<0.4 and obtained their star formation histories (SFHs). Due to their preserved very old stellar populations, relics are the perfect systems…
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…
We discuss the star formation history of the Galaxy, based on the observations of extremely metal-poor stars (EMP) in the Galactic halo, to gain an insight into the evolution and structure formation in the early universe. The initialmass…
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…