Related papers: The Starburst IMF -- An Impossible Measurement?

The initial mass function (IMF) is an essential tool with which to study star formation processes. We have initiated the photometric survey of young open clusters in the Galaxy, from which the stellar IMFs are obtained in a homogeneous way.…

We introduce a new multi-power-law distribution for the Initial Mass Function (IMF) to explore its potential properties. It follows on prior work that introduced mechanisms accounting for mass accretion in star formation, developed within…

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 study of protostellar collapse or infall has proven unusually difficult and controversial. Some historical context will be provided, against which recent advances can be measured. We now have a substantial number of objects with…

The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is expressed by $\phi(m) \propto m^{-\alpha}$ with the slope $\alpha$, and known as the poorly-constrained but very important function in studies of star and galaxy formation. There are no sensible…

We use recent microlensing observations toward the central bulge of the Galaxy to probe the overall stellar plus brown dwarf initial mass function (IMF) in these regions well within the brown dwarf domain. We find that the IMF is consistent…

In the last decade, growing evidence has emerged supporting a non-universal stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) in massive galaxies, with a larger number of dwarf stars with respect to the Milky-Way (bottom-heavy IMF). However, a consensus…

After decades of efforts, optical long-baseline interferometry has become a mainstream observational technique in terms of operation robustness and user friendliness. Interferometry has opened a new observational window, enabling…

We examine the cosmic evolution of a stellar initial mass function (IMF) in galaxies that varies with the Jeans mass in the interstellar medium, paying particular attention to the K-band stellar mass to light ratio (M/L_K) of present-epoch…

Young Moving Groups (YMGs) are close (<100pc), coherent collections of young (<100Myr) stars that appear to have formed in the same star-forming molecular cloud. As such we would expect their individual initial mass functions (IMFs) to be…

We propose a functional form for the IMF, the L_3 IMF, which is a natural heavy-tailed approximation to the log-normal distribution. It is composed of a low-mass power law and a high mass power-law which are smoothly joined together. Three…

We measure the high-mass stellar initial mass function (IMF) from resolved stars in M33 young stellar clusters. Leveraging \textit{Hubble Space Telescope's} high resolving power, we fully model the IMF probabilistically. We first model the…

Observations of mergers of multi-compact object systems offer insights to the formation processes of massive stars in globular clusters. Simulations of stellar clusters, may be used to understand and interpret observations. Simulations…

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…

I discuss two of the possible sources of biases in the determination of the IMF: binning and the existence of unresolved components. The first source is important for clusters with a small number of stars detected in a given mass bin while…

Observational and theoretical arguments increasingly suggest that the initial mass function (IMF) of stars may depend systematically on environment, yet most galaxy formation models to date assume a universal IMF. Here we investigate…

The stellar initial mass function (sIMF) is often treated as a stochastic probability distribution, yet such an interpretation implies Poisson noise that is inconsistent with growing observational evidence. In particular, the observed…

Mass determinations are difficult to obtain and still frequently characterised by deceptively large uncertainties. We review below the various mass estimators used for star clusters of all ages and luminosities. We highlight a few recent…

MHD Turbulence is a critical component of the current paradigms of star formation, particle transport, magnetic reconnection and evolution of the ISM, to name just a few. Progress on this difficult subject is made via numerical simulations…

Stars form in clustered environments, but how they form when the available resources are shared is still not well understood. A related question is whether the IMF is in fact universal across galactic environments, a galactic initial mass…