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The stellar initial mass function (IMF), which is often assumed to be universal across unresolved stellar populations, has recently been suggested to be "bottom-heavy" for massive ellipticals. In these galaxies, the prevalence of…

We present a method for investigating variations in the upper end of the stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) by probing the production rate of ionizing photons in unresolved, compact star clusters with ages <~10 Myr and with different…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-19 D. Calzetti , R. Chandar , J. C. Lee , B. G. Elmegreen , R. C. Kennicutt , B. Whitmore

The ATLAS3D Survey has reported evidence for a non-universal stellar initial mass function (IMF) for early type galaxies (ETGs) (Cappellari et al. 2012, 2013b,a). The IMF was constrained by comparing stellar mass measurements from kinematic…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-19 Bart Clauwens , Joop Schaye , Marijn Franx

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…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-08-30 Kirsten Blancato , Shy Genel , Greg Bryan

In this work, we investigate the implications of the Integrated Galaxy-wide stellar Initial Mass Function (IGIMF) approach in the framework of the semi-analytic model GAEA (GAlaxy Evolution and Assembly), which features a detailed treatment…

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…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-05-19 Mohsen Shadmehri , Bruce G. Elmegreen

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

It is currently common to use spatially unresolved multi-filter broad-band photometry to determine the masses of individual stellar clusters (and hence the cluster mass function, CMF). I analyze the stochastic effects introduced by the…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2009-07-24 J. Maíz Apellániz

the present paper, we propose that the stellar initial mass distributions as known as IMF are best fitted by $q$-Weibulls that emerge within nonextensive statistical mechanics. As a result, we show that the Salpeter's slope of $\sim$2.35 is…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2019-05-22 D. B. de Freitas , R. T. Eufrasio , M. M. F. Nepomuceno , J. R. P. da Silva

It is frequently debated in literature whether a "standard" Initial Mass Function (IMF) - meaning an IMF of the kind usually adopted to explain the chemical evolution in the local Solar Neighbourhood - can account for the observed metal…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-10 L. Portinari , A. Moretti , C. Chiosi , J. Sommer-Larsen

The stellar initial mass function (IMF), along with the star formation rate, is one of the fundamental properties that any theory of star formation must explain. An interesting feature of the IMF is that it appears to be remarkably…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2011-06-20 Andrew T. Myers , Mark R. Krumholz , Richard I. Klein , Christopher F. McKee

We present a uniform analysis of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) from integrated light spectroscopy of 15 compact stellar systems (11 globular clusters in M31 and 4 ultra compact dwarfs in the Virgo cluster, UCDs) and two brightest…

In spite of decades of theoretical efforts, the physical origin of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is still debated. We aim at understanding the influence of various physical processes such as radiative stellar feedback, magnetic…

In the present work we examined the hypothesis that, a core mass function (CMF), such as the one deduced for cores in the Orion molecular cloud (OMC), could possibly be the primogenitor of the stellar initial mass function (IMF). Using the…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-05-27 S. Anathpindika

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

Classical theories for the stellar initial mass function (IMF) predict a peak mass which scales with the properties of the molecular cloud. In this work, we explore a new theory proposed by Lee & Hennebelle (2018). The idea is that the…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2020-01-22 Tine Colman , Romain Teyssier

Obtaining accurate measurements of the initial mass function (IMF) is often considered to be the key to understanding star formation, and a universal IMF is often assumed to imply a universal star formation process. Here, we illustrate that…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-05-14 M. B. N. Kouwenhoven , S. P. Goodwin

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…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-15 F. La Barbera , I. Ferreras , A. Vazdekis , I. G. de la Rosa , R. R. de Carvalho , M. Trevisan , J. Falcón-Barroso , E. Ricciardelli

We determine the initial mass function (IMF) of the ``thin disk'' by means of a direct comparison between synthetic stellar samples (for different matching choices of IMF, star formation rate SFR and depletion) and a complete…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-07 K. -P. Schröder , B. Pagel

In this paper, we present a new derivation of the shape and evolution of the integrated galaxy-wide initial mass function (IGIMF), incorporating explicitly the effects of cosmic rays (CRs) as regulators of the chemical and thermal state of…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2018-07-18 Fabio Fontanot , Francesco La Barbera , Gabriella De Lucia , Anna Pasquali , Alexandre Vazdekis