Related papers: Testing the Turbulent Origin of the Stellar Initia…
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…
Deviations from a universal, MW-like, Stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) have been reported for distant galaxies, although the physical reason behind the observed variations is still matter of ongoing debate. In this paper, we present an…
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…
Turbulent fragmentation determines where and when protostellar cores form, and how they contract and grow in mass from the surrounding cloud material. Molecular cloud regions without turbulent driving sources, or where turbulence is driven…
A stochastic model of fragmentation of molecular clouds has been developed for studying the resulting Initial Mass Function (IMF) where the number of fragments, inter-occurrence time of fragmentation, masses and velocities of the fragments…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is predicted to depend upon the temperature of gas in star-forming molecular clouds. The introduction of an additional parameter, $T_{IMF}$ , into photometric template fitting, allows galaxies to be…
There is substantial evidence that the initial mass function (IMF) may be a function of the local star formation conditions. In particular, the IMF is predicted to flatten with increasing local luminosity density, with the formation of…
The initial mass function (IMF) of stars is a key quantity affecting almost every field of astrophysics, yet it remains unclear what physical mechanisms determine it. We present the first runs of the STARFORGE project, using a new numerical…
The current status of both the observational evidence and the theory of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is reviewed, with particular attention to the two basic, apparently universal features shown by all observations of nearby…
How does turbulence contribute to the formation and structure of the dense interstellar medium (ISM)? Molecular clouds are dense, high-pressure objects. It is usually argued that gravitational confinement causes the high pressures, and that…
We discuss the likely sources of turbulence in the ISM and explicitly calculate the detailed grand source function for the conventional sources of turbulence from supernovae, superbubbles, stellar winds and HII regions. We find that the…
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…
Recent observational evidence for initial mass function (IMF) variations in massive quiescent galaxies at $z = 0$ challenges the long-established paradigm of a universal IMF. While a few theoretical models relate the IMF to birth cloud…
An essential component of galaxy formation theory is the stellar initial mass function (IMF), that describes the parent distribution of stellar mass in star forming regions. We present observational evidence in a sample of early-type…
Few topics in astronomy initiate such vigorous discussion as whether or not the initial mass function (IMF) of stars is universal, or instead sensitive to the initial conditions of star formation. The distinction is of critical importance:…
Recently, Hennebelle and Chabrier (2008) derived an analytical theory for the mass spectrum of non self-gravitating clumps associated with overdensities in molecular clouds and for the initial mass function of gravitationally bound…
We performed numerical simulations of supersonic isothermal turbulence driven by mostly compressive large-scale forcing, using both a static grid and adaptive mesh refinement with an effective resolution N=768^3. After a transient phase…
We use recent microlensing observations toward the central bulge of the Galaxy to probe the overall stellar plus brown dwarf initial mass function (IMF) in these regions well within the brown dwarf domain. We find that the IMF is consistent…
It is now well-established that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) can be determined from the absorption line spectra of old stellar systems, and this has been used to measure the IMF and its variation across the early-type galaxy…
The Stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) characterizes the mass distribution of newly formed stars in various cosmic environments, serving as a fundamental assumption in astrophysical research. Recent findings challenge the prevalent notion…