English
Related papers

Related papers: Constraining the Initial-Mass Function via Stellar…

200 papers

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…

Recent observational and theoretical studies indicate that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) varies systematically with the environment (star formation rate - SFR, metallicity). Although the exact dependence of the IMF on those…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-04-08 Martyna Chruslinska , Tereza Jerabkova , Gijs Nelemans , Zhiqiang Yan

Recent observations by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have found evidence for an invariant relation between stellar mass, metallicity, and star formation rate up to $z\sim 8$ and its breakdown at higher redshifts. Understanding the…

The spectral absorption lines in early-type galaxies contain a wealth of information regarding the detailed abundance pattern, star formation history, and stellar initial mass function (IMF) of the underlying stellar population. Using our…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-05 Charlie Conroy , Pieter van Dokkum

The birth of stars and the formation of galaxies are cornerstones of modern astrophysics. While much is known about how galaxies globally and their stars individually form and evolve, one fundamental property that affects both remains…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2019-02-20 A. M. Hopkins

Much of our knowledge of galaxies comes from analysing the radiation emitted by their stars. It depends on the stellar initial mass function (IMF) describing the distribution of stellar masses when the population formed. Consequently…

The stellar initial mass function (IMF) describes how many stars form at which mass. Despite recent observational progress, many fundamental properties of the IMF are still unknown. Specifically the question, whether starbursts are biased…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 Frank Eisenhauer

The debate about the universality of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) revolves around two competing lines of evidence. While measurements in the Milky Way, an archetypal spiral galaxy, seem to support an invariant IMF, the observed…

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…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-10-30 Sami Dib , Stefan Schmeja , Sacha Hony

Observations with JWST have revealed an unexpected high abundance of bright z>10 galaxy candidates. We explore whether a stellar initial mass function (IMF) that becomes increasingly top-heavy towards higher redshifts and lower gas-phase…

The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is a fundamental property in the measurement of stellar masses and galaxy star formation histories. In this work we focus on the most massive galaxies in the nearby universe…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2022-06-29 Meng Gu , Jenny Greene , Andrew B. Newman , Christina Kreisch , Matthew Quenneville , Chung-Pei Ma , John P. Blakeslee

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…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-03-22 Charlie Conroy , Pieter van Dokkum , Alexa Villaume

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…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-04-15 Yu-Ting Wang , Chao Liu , Jiadong Li

Stars are amongst the most fundamental structures of our Universe. They comprise most of the baryonic and luminous mass of galaxies, synthethise heavy elements, and injec\ t mass, momentum, and energy into the interstellar medium. They are…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2024-04-16 Patrick Hennebelle , Michael Y. Grudić

The presence (and nature) of variations in the stellar initial mass function (IMF) at substantially sub-solar masses and metallicities ($m$$<$0.5M$_{\odot}$, [M/H]$\lesssim$$-$1) remains poorly constrained. Predictions from simulations vary…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-03-17 Roger E. Cohen , Mario Gennaro , Matteo Correnti , Kristen B. W. McQuinn , Vedant Chandra

Observations have not yielded convincing results concerning the form of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) or its variations in space and time, so it is proposed that theoretical models may provide useful guidance. Several classes of…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-09-25 John Scalo

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…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-03-26 Charles L. Steinhardt , Carter Meyerhoff , Alexander J. Luening

We explore the stellar initial mass function (IMF) of a sample of 49 massive quiescent galaxies (MQGs) at 0.9$<$z$<$1.5. We base our analysis on intermediate resolution spectro-photometric data in the GOODS-N field taken in the…

The stellar initial mass function (IMF) of early-type galaxies is the combination of the IMF of the stellar population formed in-situ and that of accreted stellar populations. Using as an observable the effective IMF $\alpha_{IMF}$, defined…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-01-18 Alessandro Sonnenfeld , Carlo Nipoti , Tommaso Treu

The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is commonly assumed to be an invariant probability density distribution function of initial stellar masses being represented by the canonical IMF. As a consequence the galaxy-wide IMF (gwIMF), defined…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2018-11-28 T. Jerabkova , A. H. Zonoozi , P. Kroupa , G. Beccari , Z. Yan , A. Vazdekis , Z. -Y. Zhang