IMF slope derived from a pure probabilistic model
Astrophysics of Galaxies
2025-03-20 v1 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Abstract
The stellar initial mass function is of great significance for the study of star formation and galactic structure. Observations indicate that the IMF follows a power-law form. This work derived that when the expected number of stars formed from a spherical molecular cloud is much greater than 1, there is a relationship between the slope of the IMF and in the radius-density relation of spherically symmetric gas clouds, given by (). This conclusion is close to the results of numerical simulations and observations, but it is derived from a pure probabilistic model, which may have underlying reasons worth pondering.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2503.14812,
title = {IMF slope derived from a pure probabilistic model},
author = {Yu-Fu Shen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.14812},
year = {2025}
}