Related papers: Understanding the IMF
The thermal properties of star-forming clouds have an important influence on how they fragment into stars, and it is suggested in this paper that the low-mass stellar IMF, which appears to be almost universal, is determined largely by the…
The theory for the formation of the first population of stars (Pop III) predicts an initial mass function (IMF) dominated by high-mass stars, in contrast to the present-day IMF, which tends to yield mostly stars with masses less than 1…
The current status of both the observational evidence and the theory of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is reviewed, with particular attention to the two basic, apparently universal features shown by all observations of nearby…
We discuss results from numerical simulations of star cluster formation in the turbulent interstellar medium (ISM). The thermodynamic behavior of the star-forming gas plays a crucial role in fragmentation and determines the stellar mass…
The theory for the formation of the first population of stars (Pop III) predicts a IMF composed predominantly of high-mass stars, in contrast to the present-day IMF, which tends to yield stars with masses less than 1 M_Solar. The leading…
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, allows galaxies to be…
Observations of the stellar initial mass function are reviewed. The flattening at low mass is evidence for a characteristic mass in star formation, which could be the minimum stellar mass for the onset of deuterium burning or the thermal…
The characteristic mass M_c in the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is about constant for most star-forming regions. Numerical simulations consistently show a proportionality between M_c and the thermal Jeans mass M_J at the time of…
To constrain the nature of the very first stars, we investigate the collapse and fragmentation of primordial, metal-free gas clouds. We explore the physics of primordial star formation by means of three-dimensional simulations of the dark…
While the stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) appears to be close to universal within the Milky Way galaxy, it is strongly suspected to be different in the primordial Universe, where molecular hydrogen cooling is less efficient and the gas…
We use numerical simulations of the fragmentation of a 1000 solar mass molecular cloud and the formation of a stellar cluster to study how the initial conditions for star formation affect the resulting initial mass function (IMF). In…
The first bound star-forming systems in the universe are predicted to form at redshifts of about 30 and to have masses of the order of 10^6 M_sun. Although their sizes and masses are similar to those of present star-forming regions, their…
Dust and gas energetics are incorporated into a cluster-scale simulation of star formation in order to study the effect of heating and cooling on the star formation process. We build on our previous work by calculating separately the dust…
We investigate the dependence of stellar properties on the mean thermal Jeans mass in molecular clouds. We compare the results from the two largest hydrodynamical simulations of star formation to resolve the fragmentation process down to…
Observed variations in the slope of the initial stellar mass function are shown to be consistent with a model in which the protostellar gas is randomly sampled from hierarchical clouds at a rate proportional to the square root of the local…
The stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) seems to be close to universal in the local star-forming regions. However, this quantity of a newborn stellar population responds differently at gas metallicities $Z \sim$ $Z_\odot$ than $Z$ = 0. A…
A brief review is given of the basic observed features of the stellar IMF, and also of some of the theoretical ideas and simulations that may help to explain these features. The characteristic stellar mass of order one solar mass may derive…
Three component models of the IMF are made to consider possible origins for the observed relative variations in the numbers of brown dwarfs, solar-to-intermediate mass stars, and high mass stars. Three distinct physical processes are noted.…
The evolution of self-gravitating clouds of isothermal gas forms the basis of many star formation theories. Therefore it is important to know under what conditions such a cloud will undergo homologous collapse into a single, massive object,…
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…