Related papers: Evidence for a fundamental stellar upper mass limi…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) describes the mass distribution of stars at the time of their formation and is of fundamental importance for many areas of astrophysics. The IMF is reasonably well constrained in the disk of the Milky…
It has frequently been suggested that the stellar IMF in galaxies was top-heavy at early times. This would be plausible physically if the IMF depends on a mass scale such as the Jeans mass that was higher at earlier times because of the…
The measured star-formation rates (SFRs) of galaxies comprise an important constraint on galaxy evolution and also on their cosmological boundary conditions. Any available tracer of the SFR depends on the shape of the mass-distribution of…
We have undertaken the largest systematic study of the high-mass stellar initial mass function (IMF) to date using the optical color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of 85 resolved, young (4 Myr < t < 25 Myr), intermediate mass star clusters…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is a fundamental property of star formation, offering key insight into the physics driving the process as well as informing our understanding of stellar populations, their by-products, and their…
Several observational and theoretical indications suggest that the initial mass function (IMF) becomes increasingly top-heavy (i.e., overabundant in high-mass stars with mass $m > 1M_{\odot}$) with decreasing metallicity and increasing gas…
In many different galactic environments the cluster initial mass function (CIMF) is well described by a power-law with index -2. This implies a linear relation between the mass of the most massive cluster (M_max) and the number of clusters.…
The universality or non-universality of the initial mass function (IMF) has significant implications for determining star formation rates and star formation histories from photometric properties of stellar populations. We reexamine whether…
A survey of results concerning the IMF derived from star counts is presented, including work up to, but not including, that presented in these proceedings. The situation regarding low-mass stars in the field and in clusters, high-mass stars…
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…
We present a new assessment of the ability of Infrared Dark Clouds (IRDCs) to form massive stars and clusters. This is done by comparison with an empirical mass-size threshold for massive star formation (MSF). We establish…
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…
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…
Theoretical arguments and indirect observational evidence suggest that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) may evolve with time, such that it is more weighted toward high mass stars at higher redshift. Here we test this idea by…
Several recent observational studies have concluded that the initial mass function (IMF) of stars varies systematically with galaxy properties such as velocity dispersion. In this paper, we investigate the effect of linking the circular…
If all stars form in clusters and both the stars and the clusters follow a power law distribution which favours the creation of low mass objects, then the numerous low mass clusters will be deficient in high mass stars. Therefore, the mass…
When an universal untruncated star cluster initial mass function (CIMF) described by a power-law distribution is assumed, the mass of the most massive star cluster in a galaxy (M_max) is the result of the size-of-sample (SoS) effect. This…
The highest-mass stars have the lowest frequency in the stellar IMF, and they are also the most easily observed stars. Thus, the counting statistics for OB stars provide important tests for the fundamental nature and quantitative parameters…
The distribution of stellar masses that form in one star-formation event in a given volume of space is called the initial mass function (IMF). The IMF has been estimated from low-mass brown dwarfs to very massive stars. Combining IMF…
Many recent works have attempted to constrain the stellar initial mass function (IMF) inside massive clusters by comparing their dynamical mass estimates to the measured light. These studies have come to different conclusions, with some…