Related papers: The maximum stellar mass, star-cluster formation a…
The current knowledge on the stellar IMF is documented. It appears to become top-heavy when the star-formation rate density surpasses about 0.1Msun/(yr pc^3) on a pc scale and it may become increasingly bottom-heavy with increasing…
Theoretical considerations lead to the expectation that stars should not have masses larger than about m_{max*}=60-120Msun, while the observational evidence has been ambiguous. Only very recently has a physical stellar mass limit near…
When a detailed model of a stellar population is unavailable, it is most common to assume that stellar masses are independently and identically distributed according to some distribution: the universal initial mass function (IMF). However,…
We present a thorough literature study of the most-massive star, m_max, in several young star clusters in order to assess whether or not star clusters are populated from the stellar initial mass function (IMF) by random sampling over the…
(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…
The combination of a finite time-scale for star formation, rapid early stellar evolution and rapid stellar-dynamical processes imply that the stellar IMF cannot be inferred for any star cluster independently of its age (the Cluster IMF…
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…
A growing fraction of Simple Stellar Population (SSP) models, in an aim to create more realistic simulations capable of including stochastic variation in their outputs, begin their simulations with a distribution of discrete stars following…
We attempt to evaluate whether the integrated galactic IMF (IGIMF) is expected to be steeper than the IMF within individual clusters through direct evaluation of whether there is a systematic dependence of maximum stellar mass on cluster…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) integrated over an entire galaxy is an integral over all separate star-formation events. Since most stars form in star clusters with different masses the integrated IMF becomes an integral of the…
Our understanding of stellar systems depends on the adopted interpretation of the IMF, phi(m). Unfortunately, there is not a common interpretation of the IMF, which leads to different methodologies and diverging analysis of observational…
As most if not all stars are born in stellar clusters the shape of the mass function of the field stars is not only determined by the initial mass function of stars (IMF) but also by the cluster mass function (CMF). In order to quantify…
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…
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…
The observed masses of the most massive stars do not surpass about 150Msun. This may either be a fundamental upper mass limit which is defined by the physics of massive stars and/or their formation, or it may simply reflect the increasing…
The stellar initial mass functions (IMFs) for the Galactic bulge, the Milky Way, other galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and the integrated stars in the Universe are composites from countless individual IMFs in star clusters and associations…
The combination of the high-resolution ALMA, JWST and HST observations provides unprecedented insights into the connection between individual molecular clouds and their internal stellar populations in nearby galaxies. The molecular clouds…
We have made a new compilation of observations of maximum stellar mass versus cluster membership number from the literature, which we analyse for consistency with the predictions of a simple random drawing hypothesis for stellar mass…
Star formation happens in a clustered way which is why the star cluster population of a particular galaxy is closely related to the star formation history of this galaxy. From the probabilistic nature of a mass function follows that the…
The conditions required for massive star formation are debated, particularly whether massive stars must form in conjunction with massive clusters. Some authors have advanced the view that stars of any mass (below the total cluster mass) can…