Related papers: A hierarchical Bayesian approach for reconstructin…
The initial mass function (IMF) is a key ingredient in many studies of galaxy formation and evolution. Although the IMF is often assumed to be universal, there is continuing evidence that it is not universal. Spectroscopic studies that…
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 stellar masses, mean ages, metallicities, and star formation histories of galaxies are now commonly estimated via stellar population synthesis (SPS) techniques. SPS relies on stellar evolution calculations from the main sequence to…
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…
We investigate whether the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is universal, or whether it varies significantly among young stellar clusters in the Milky Way. We propose a method to uncover the range of variation of the parameters that…
The complexity of constraining the stellar initial mass function (IMF) in early-type galaxies cannot be overstated, given the necessity of both very high signal-to-noise (S/N) data and the difficulty of breaking the strong degeneracies that…
A wealth of observations recently challenged the notion of a universal stellar initial mass function (IMF) by showing evidences in favour of a variability of this statistical indicator as a function of galaxy properties. I present…
Accurate specification of a likelihood function is becoming increasingly difficult in many inference problems in astronomy. As sample sizes resulting from astronomical surveys continue to grow, deficiencies in the likelihood function lead…
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…
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…
The initial mass function (IMF) describes the distribution of stellar masses in a population of newly born stars and is amongst the most fundamental concepts in astrophysics. It is not only the direct result of the star formation process…
The initial mass function (IMF) is a construct that describes the distribution of stellar masses for a newly formed population of stars. It is a fundamental element underlying all of star and galaxy formation, and has been the subject of…
Most structural and evolutionary properties of galaxies strongly rely on the stellar initial mass function (IMF), namely the distribution of the stellar mass formed in each episode of star formation. As the IMF shapes the stellar population…
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…
We present a new method for deriving the stellar birth function (SBF) of resolved stellar populations. The SBF (stars born per unit mass, time, and metallicity) is the combination of the initial mass function (IMF), the star-formation…
[abridged] We aim to constrain the stellar initial mass function (IMF) during the epoch of reionization. To this purpose, we build up a semi-empirical model for the reionization history of the Universe, based on various ingredients: the…
We report on empirical trends between the dynamically determined stellar initial mass function (IMF) and stellar population properties for a complete, volume-limited sample of 260 early-type galaxies from the Atlas3D project. We study…
Recent results form the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) report space densities for bright and massive galaxies at z>7 that far exceed expectations of theoretical models of galaxy formation, prompting a revision of our understanding of the…
(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…
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…