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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…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-03-26 Diego Salvador , Andrew Hopkins , Matt Owers , Themiya Nanayakkara , Scott Croom

We review recent advances in our understanding of the origin of the initial mass function (IMF). We emphasize the use of numerical simulations to investigate how each physical process involved in star formation affects the resulting IMF. We…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 Ian A. Bonnell , Richard B. Larson , Hans Zinnecker

Recent papers have found that the inferred slope of the high-mass ($>1.5$ M$_\odot$) IMF for field stars in the solar vicinity has a larger value ($\sim 1.7-2.1$) than the slopes ($\sim 1.2-1.7$; Salpeter= 1.35) inferred from numerous…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2018-07-23 Antonio Parravano , David Hollenbach , Christopher F. McKee

The stellar initial mass functions (IMFs) for the Galactic bulge, the Milky Way, other galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and the integrated stars in the Universe are composites from countless individual IMFs in star clusters and associations…

Astrophysics · Physics 2008-11-26 Bruce G. Elmegreen

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

Stars form from dense molecular cores, and the mass function of these cores (the CMF) is often found to be similar to the form of the stellar initial mass function (IMF). This suggests that the form of the IMF is the result of the form of…

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…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 C. Weidner , P. Kroupa

The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is a fundamental astrophysical quantity that impacts a wide range of astrophysical problems from heavy element distribution to galactic evolution to planetary system formation. However, the origin and…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2017-01-11 S. S. R. Offner

The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is commonly interpreted to be a scale-invariant probability density distribution function (PDF) such that many small clusters yield the same IMF as one massive cluster of the same combined number of…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2023-02-22 Zhiqiang Yan , Tereza Jerabkova , Pavel Kroupa

If we accept a paradigm that star formation is a self-similar, hierarchical process, then the Salpeter slope of the IMF for high-mass stars can be simply and elegantly explained as follows. If the instrinsic IMF at the smallest scales…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2012-07-11 M. S. Oey

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…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2024-05-29 Zhiqiang Yan , Jiadong Li , Pavel Kroupa , Tereza Jerabkova , Eda Gjergo , Zhi-Yu Zhang

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, suggest most galaxies…

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

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…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2010-11-10 Carsten Weidner , Jan Pflamm-Altenburg , Pavel Kroupa

Statistical sampling from the stellar initial mass function (IMF) for all star-forming regions in the Galaxy would lead to the prediction of ~1000 Msun stars unless there is a rapid turn-down in the IMF beyond several hundred solar masses.…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-10-31 Bruce G. Elmegreen

Observations of normal galactic star-forming regions suggest there is widespread near-uniformity in the initial stellar mass function (IMF) in spite of diverse physical conditions. Fluctuations may come largely from statistical effects and…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 B. G. Elmegreen

We investigate the time evolution and spatial variation of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) in star-forming disk galaxies by using chemodynamical simulations with an IMF model depending both on local densities and metallicities…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-12 Kenji Bekki , Gerhardt R. Meurer

We show that the same initial mass function (IMF) can result from very different modes of star formation from very similar underlying core and/or system mass functions. In particular, we show that the canonical IMF can be recovered from…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-05-13 Simon P Goodwin , M B N Kouwenhoven

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…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2023-01-31 Jiadong Li , Chao Liu , Zhi-Yu Zhang , Hao Tian , Xiaoting Fu , Jiao Li , Zhi-Qiang Yan

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…