English
Related papers

Related papers: The Stellar Mass Function

200 papers

We summarize recent observational and theoretical progress aimed at understanding the origin of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) with specific focus on galactic star-forming regions. We synthesize data from various efforts to…

Research on the high-mass end of the initial mass function (IMF) has been limited due to a scarcity of samples. Recently, Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST), as the most efficient spectroscopic telescope, has…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-05-21 Qida Li , Jianping Xiong , Zhenwei Li , Dan Qiu , Chao Liu , Zhanwen Han , Xuefei Chen

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…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 Richard B. Larson

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…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-20 Pieter van Dokkum , Charlie Conroy

The evolution of the galaxy stellar mass--star formation rate relationship (M*-SFR) provides key constraints on the stellar mass assembly histories of galaxies. For star-forming galaxies, M*-SFR is observed to be fairly tight with a slope…

Astrophysics · Physics 2010-11-23 Romeel Davé

We present a luminosity function (LF) for lower main sequence stars in the Galactic bulge near (l,b)=(0,-6) to J=24, corresponding to M_J~9.3. This LF is derived from HST + NICMOS observations with the F110W and F160W filters. The main…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-10-31 M. Zoccali , S. Cassisi , J. A. Frogel , A. Gould , S. Ortolani , A. Renzini , R. M. Rich , A. W. Stephens

(Summary) Making use of scaling relations between the central and the total galaxy luminosity of a dark matter halo as a function of the halo mass, and the scatter in these relations, we present an empirical model to describe the luminosity…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-11 Asantha Cooray

The stellar initial mass function at high redshift is an important defining property of the first stellar systems to form and may also play a role in various dark matter problems. We here determine the faint stellar luminosity function in…

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…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2021-12-22 Pavel Kroupa , Tereza Jerabkova

Massive stars define the upper limits of the star formation process, dominate the energetics of their local environs, and significantly affect the chemical evolution of galaxies. Their role in starburst galaxies and the early Universe is…

Astrophysics · Physics 2015-11-11 Donald F. Figer

We measure the stellar mass function (SMF) of galaxies in the COSMOS field up to $z\sim6$. We select them in the near-IR bands of the COSMOS2015 catalogue, which includes ultra-deep photometry from UltraVISTA-DR2, SPLASH, and…

I review efforts to determine the form and any lower limit to the initial mass function in the Galactic disk, using observations of low-mass stars and brown dwarfs in the field, young clusters and star forming regions. I focus on the…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-05 R. D. Jeffries

We examine the most recent observational constraints arising from i) small-scale and large-scale Galactic dynamical properties, ii) star counts at faint magnitude and iii) microlensing experiments. From these constraints, we determine the…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 D. Méra , G. Chabrier , R. Schaeffer

Most structural and evolutionary properties of galaxies strongly rely on the stellar initial mass function (IMF), namely the distribution of the stellar mass formed in each episode of star formation. As the IMF shapes the stellar population…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2023-01-31 Jiadong Li , Chao Liu , Zhi-Yu Zhang , Hao Tian , Xiaoting Fu , Jiao Li , Zhi-Qiang Yan

We present measurements of the luminosity and mass functions of low-mass stars constructed from a catalog of matched Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and 2 Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) detections. This photometric catalog contains more than…

We study the connection between the observed star formation rate-stellar mass (SFR-$M_*$) relation and the evolution of the stellar mass function (SMF) by means of a subhalo abundance matching technique coupled to merger trees extracted…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-11-15 E. Contini , X. Kang , A. D. Romeo , Q. Xia , S. K. Yi

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…

Astrophysics · Physics 2008-03-24 Bruce G. Elmegreen

The initial and present-day mass functions (ICMF and PDMF, respectively) of the Galactic globular clusters (GCs) are constructed based on their observed luminosities, the stellar evolution and dynamical mass-loss processes, and the…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-04 Charles Bonatto , Eduardo Bica

I use a sample of more than 120,000 stars in the solar neighbourhood with parallaxes, magnitudes and colours estimated with unprecedented accuracy by the second data release of the Gaia mission to derive the initial mass function of the…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2019-09-25 A. Sollima