Related papers: Steeper, Flatter, or Just "Salpeter"? Evidence fro…

Although the stellar initial mass function (IMF) has only been directly determined in star clusters it has been manifoldly applied on galaxy-wide scales. But taking the clustered nature of star formation into account the galaxy-wide IMF is…

Clusters of galaxies allow a direct estimate of the metallicity and metal production yield on the largest scale so far. The ratio of the total iron mass in the ICM to the total optical luminosity of the cluster (the iron…

We derive the expectation value for the maximum stellar mass (m_max) in an ensemble of N stars, as a function of the IMF upper-mass cutoff (m_up) and N. We statistically demonstrate that the upper IMF of the local massive star census…

We review recent determinations of the present day and initial mass functions in various components of the Galaxy, disk, spheroid, young and globular clusters. As a general feature, the IMF is well described by a power-law form for $m\ga 1…

In models of galaxy formation in a hierarchical Universe, elliptical galaxies form through the merging of smaller disk systems. These models yield a number of testable predictions if reliable techniques for determining the relative ages and…

Growing evidence in recent years suggests a systematic variation of the stellar initial mass function (IMF), being top-heavy for starburst galaxies and possibly bottom-heavy for massive ellipticals. Galaxy chemical evolution simulations…

We use spiral galaxy evolution models to argue that there are substantial variations in stellar mass-to-light ratio (M/L) within and among galaxies. Our models show a strong correlation between stellar M/L and galaxy color. We compare the…

We revisit the problem of the flat slope of the Mg2 versus <Fe> relationship found for nuclei of elliptical galaxies (Faber et al. 1992; Worthey et al. 1992; Carollo et al. 1993; Davies et al. 1993), indicating that the Mg/Fe ratio should…

Gaseous and stellar metallicities in galaxies are nowadays routinely used to constrain the evolutionary processes in galaxies. This requires the knowledge of the average yield per stellar generation, $y_{\text{Z}}$, i.e. the quantity of…

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…

The essential features of the stellar Initial Mass Function are, rather generally, (1) a peak at a mass of a few tenths of a solar mass, and (2) a power-law tail toward higher masses that is similar to the original Salpeter function. Recent…

The characteristic mass M_c and slope Gamma of the IMF are reviewed for clusters, field regions, galaxies, and regions formed during cosmological times. Local star formation has a somewhat uniform M_c and Gamma. Statistical variations in…

The stellar initial mass function (IMF) determines the relative number of stars born at a given mass. Despite the tremendous effort to establish a universal IMF, the astronomical literature offers a wealth of diverse evidence for IMF…

We obtain constraints on the slope of a universal stellar initial mass function (IMF) over a range of cosmic star-formation histories (SFH) using z=0.1 luminosity densities in the range from 0.2 to 2.2 microns. The age-IMF degeneracy of…

Using the guidelines on SN element production provided by XMM-Newton, we summarize the results of ASCA observations on the element abundance in groups and clusters of galaxies. We show that while the metal production in groups could be…

(abridged) The case can be made for a rather universal stellar IMF form that can be approximated by a two-part power-law function in the stellar regime. However, there exists a possible hint for a systematic variation with metallicity. A…

Variations in the stellar initial mass function (IMF) have been invoked to explain the spectroscopic and dynamical properties of early-type galaxies. However, no observations have yet been able to disentangle the physical driver. We analyse…

It is difficult to reconcile the observed evolution of the star formation rate versus stellar mass (SFR-M*) relation with expectations from current hierarchical galaxy formation models. The observed SFR-M* relation shows a rapid rise in…

We demonstrate that the mass of the most massive star in a cluster correlates non-trivially with the cluster mass. A simple algorithm according to which a cluster is filled up with stars that are chosen randomly from the standard IMF but…

We derive the average mass profile of elliptical galaxies from the ensemble of 161 strong gravitational lens systems selected from several surveys, assuming that the mass profile scales with the stellar mass and effective radius of each…