Related papers: Testing the Relation Between the Local and Cosmic …
The hypothesis of a universal initial mass function (IMF) -- motivated by observations in nearby stellar systems -- has been recently challenged by the discovery of a systematic variation of the IMF with the central velocity dispersion,…
Observations and theory of the IMF are briefly reviewed. Slight variations have been observed, although they are difficult to prove unambiguously. Most detailed theoretical models reproduce the IMF, but because they use different…
We argue that the interplay between cosmic rays, the initial mass function, and star formation plays a crucial role in regulating the star-forming "main sequence". To explore these phenomena we develop a toy model for galaxy evolution in…
We propose a simple theoretical model for star formation in which the local star formation rate in a galaxy is determined by three factors. First, the interplay between the interstellar radiation field and molecular self-shielding…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is among the most fundamental distributions in astrophysics, defined as the mass spectrum of stars produced in a single star-formation event. Even in the solar neighbourhood, where measurements can be…
Studies of molecular clouds and young stars near the sun have provided invaluable insights into the process of star formation. Indeed, much of our physical understanding of this topic has been derived from such studies. Perhaps the two most…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is a fundamental property in the measurement of stellar masses and galaxy star formation histories. In this work we focus on the most massive galaxies in the nearby universe…
A tightly correlated star formation rate-stellar mass relation of star forming galaxies, or star-forming sequence (SFS), is a key feature in galaxy property-space that is predicted by modern galaxy formation models. We present a flexible…
We address the question of the occurrence of star formation bursts in the solar neighbourhood by using the metallicity distribution of the G dwarfs. We present a method to recover the star formation history using simultaneously the…
Conformity denotes the correlation of properties between pairs of galaxies as a function of separation. Correlations between properties such as star formation rate (SFR), stellar mass, and specific star formation rate (sSFR) have…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is thought to be bottom-heavy in the cores of the most massive galaxies, with an excess of low mass stars compared to the Milky Way. However, studies of the kinematics of quiescent galaxies at 2<z<5…
Understanding the diversity of star formation histories (SFHs) of galaxies is key to reconstructing their evolutionary paths. Traditional models often assume parametric forms such as delayed-tau or exponentially declining models, which may…
The distributions of stars and prestellar cores by mass (initial and dense core mass functions, IMF/DCMF) are among the key factors regulating star formation and are the subject of detailed theoretical and observational studies. Results…
Two varieties of the universal stellar initial mass function (IMF) viz., the Kroupa and the Chabrier IMF, have emerged over the last decade to explain the observed distribution of stellar masses. The possibility of the universal nature of…
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…
This paper revisits the classical Kennicutt method for inferring the stellar initial mass function (IMF) from the integrated light properties of galaxies. The large size, uniform high quality data set from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR4…
Metallicity is one of the crucial factors that determine stellar evolution. To characterize the properties of stellar populations one needs to know the fraction of stars forming at different metallicities. Knowing how this fraction evolves…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF), which is often assumed to be universal across unresolved stellar populations, has recently been suggested to be "bottom-heavy" for massive ellipticals. In these galaxies, the prevalence of…
Recent studies seem to suggest that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) in early-type galaxies might be different from a classical Kroupa or Chabrier IMF, i.e. contain a larger fraction of the total mass in low-mass stars. From a…
Quantification of the Galaxy's star formation history involves both the duration and the rate of formation, with these parameters being known with different precision for different populations. The early rate of star formation is knowable…