Related papers: Evidence for a bottom-light initial mass function …

Several independent lines of evidence suggest that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) in early-type galaxies becomes increasingly `bottom-heavy' with increasing galaxy mass and/or velocity dispersion, sigma. Here we consider evidence…

HST imaging of M22 has allowed, for the first time, a detailed and uniform mapping of mass segregation in a globular cluster. Luminosity and mass functions from the turnoff down to the mid to lower main sequence are presented for M22 in…

The predicted mass function of dark matter halos is essential in connecting observed galaxy cluster counts and models of galaxy clustering to the properties of the primordial density field. We determine the mass function in the concordance…

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…

Elliptical, lenticular, and early-type spiral galaxies show a remarkably tight power-law correlation between the mass M_BH of their central supermassive black hole (SMBH) and the number N_GC of globular clusters: M_BH=m*N_GC^(1.08+/-0.04)…

We perform a series of direct $N$-body calculations to investigate the effect of residual gas expulsion from the gas-embedded progenitors of present-day globular clusters (GCs) on the stellar mass function (MF). Our models start either…

The mass function of galaxy clusters is a sensitive tracer of the gravitational evolution of the cosmic large-scale structure and serves as an important census of the fraction of matter bound in large structures. We obtain the mass function…

We have developed a set of dynamically evolving Fokker-Planck models for the collapsed-core globular star cluster M15, which directly address the issue of whether a central black hole is required to fit Hubble Space Telescope (HST)…

We constrain the evolution of the galaxy stellar mass function from 2 < z < 5 for galaxies with stellar masses as low as 10^5 Msun by combining star formation histories of Milky Way satellite galaxies derived from deep Hubble Space…

Luminosity functions have been determined for star cluster populations in 20 nearby (4-30 Mpc), star-forming galaxies based on ACS source lists generated by the Hubble Legacy Archive. Comparisons are made with other recently generated…

As ancient, gravitationally bound stellar populations, globular clusters are abundant, vibrant laboratories characterized by high frequencies of dynamical interactions coupled to complex stellar evolution. Using surface brightness and…

We investigate the most plausible stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) and the main origin of the tilt of the Fundamental Plane (FP) for old, massive early-type galaxies. We consider a sample of 13 bright galaxies of the Coma cluster and…

Star counts at high and intermediate galactic latitudes, in the visible and the near infrared, are used to determine the density law and the initial mass function of the thick disc population. The combination of shallow fields dominated by…

We present the results obtained from an objective search for stellar clusters, both in the currently active nuclear starburst region, and in the post-starburst disk of M82. Images obtained with the HST/ACS in F435W(B), F555W(V), and…

Stars form predominantly in groups usually denoted as clusters or associations. The observed stellar groups display a broad spectrum of masses, sizes and other properties, so it is often assumed that there is no underlying structure in this…

We investigated a volume-limited sample of LAMOST main-sequence stars with masses from 0.25 to 1 $M_{\odot}$ and distances of 150-350 pc to explore how the stellar initial mass function (IMF) varies with metallicity. We corrected the…

We use a large sample of galaxies from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to calculate galaxy luminosity and stellar mass functions in the local Universe. We estimate k-corrections, evolution…

Some theories of star formation suggest massive stars may only form in clustered environments, which would create a deficit of massive stars in low density environments. Observationally, Massey (2002) finds such a deficit in samples of the…

The newly installed Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) on the Hubble Space Telescope has been used to obtain multi-band images of the nearby spiral galaxy M83. These new observations are the deepest and highest resolution images ever taken of a…

Observational studies are showing that the galaxy-wide stellar initial mass function are top-heavy in galaxies with high star-formation rates (SFRs). Calculating the integrated galactic stellar initial mass function (IGIMF) as a function of…