Related papers: Is it possible to reconcile extragalactic IMF vari…
We investigate the dependence of stellar properties on the mean thermal Jeans mass in molecular clouds. We compare the results from the two largest hydrodynamical simulations of star formation to resolve the fragmentation process down to…
It is usually assumed that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) takes a universal form and that there exists a direct mapping between this and the distribution of natal core masses (the core mass function, CMF). The IMF and CMF have been…
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…
Using new long-slit spectroscopy obtained with X-Shooter at ESO-VLT, we study, for the first time, radial gradients of optical and Near-Infrared IMF-sensitive features in a representative sample of galaxies at the very high-mass end of the…
Recent estimates point to abundances of z > 4 sub-millimeter (sub-mm) galaxies far above model predictions. The matter is still debated. According to some analyses the excess may be substantially lower than initially thought and perhaps…
We review our current knowledge on the IMF in nearby environments, massive star forming regions, super star clusters, starbursts and alike objects from studies of integrated light, and discuss the various techniques used to constrain the…
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)…
Context: The determination of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) of massive galaxies is one of the open problems in cosmology. Strong gravitational lensing is one of the few methods that allow us to constrain the IMF outside of the…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is a key property of stellar populations. There is growing evidence that the classical star-formation mechanism by the direct cloud fragmentation process has difficulties reproducing the observed…
Observations and theories of the stellar initial mass function are reviewed. The universality and large total mass range of the power law portion of the IMF suggest a connection between stellar mass and cloud structure. The fractal patterns…
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…
We consider that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) depends on physical properties of star-forming molecular clouds in galaxies and thereby investigate how such a non-universal IMF (NUIMF) influences galaxy evolution. We incorporate a…
Recent spatially-resolved observations of massive early-type galaxies (ETGs) have uncovered evidence for radial gradients of the stellar initial mass function (IMF), ranging from super-Salpeter IMFs in the centre to Milky Way-like beyond…
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 determine an absolute calibration of stellar mass-to-light ratios for the densest \simeq 3% of early-type galaxies in the local universe (redshift z\simeq 0.08) from SDSS DR7. This sample of \sim 4000 galaxies has, assuming a Chabrier…
The functional form of the galaxy-wide stellar initial mass function is of fundamental importance for understanding galaxies. So far this stellar initial mass function has been assumed to be identical to the IMF observed directly in star…
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…
Over the past years observations of young and populous star clusters have shown that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) can be conveniently described by a two-part power-law with an exponent alpha_2 = 2.3 for stars more massive than…
We attempt to evaluate whether the integrated galactic IMF (IGIMF) is expected to be steeper than the IMF within individual clusters through direct evaluation of whether there is a systematic dependence of maximum stellar mass on cluster…
Although the stellar initial mass function (IMF) has only been directly determined in star clusters it has been manifoldly applied on galaxy-wide scales. But taking the clustered nature of star formation into account the galaxy-wide IMF is…