相关论文: The Origin of The Stellar Initial Mass Function

The stellar initial mass function (IMF), along with the star formation rate, is one of the fundamental properties that any theory of star formation must explain. An interesting feature of the IMF is that it appears to be remarkably…

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…

The debate about the universality of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) revolves around two competing lines of evidence. While measurements in the Milky Way, an archetypal spiral galaxy, seem to support an invariant IMF, the observed…

We study the physical properties derived from interstellar cloud complexes having a fractal structure. We first generate fractal clouds with a given fractal dimension and associate each clump with a maximum in the resulting density field.…

We show that one can obtain a good fit to the measured main sequence mass function (MF) of a large sample of Galactic clusters (young and old) with a tapered Salpeter power law distribution function with an exponential truncation. The…

Classical theories for the stellar initial mass function (IMF) predict a peak mass which scales with the properties of the molecular cloud. In this work, we explore a new theory proposed by Lee & Hennebelle (2018). The idea is that the…

Star formation is intimately linked to the dynamical evolution of molecular clouds. Turbulent fragmentation determines where and when protostellar cores form, and how they contract and grow in mass via accretion from the surrounding cloud…

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…

We introduce a new dual power law (DPL) probability distribution function for the mass distribution of stellar and substellar objects at birth, otherwise known as the initial mass function (IMF). The model contains both deterministic and…

The initial mass function (IMF) of stars and the corresponding cloud mass function (CMF), traditionally considered universal, exhibit variations that are influenced by the local environment. Notably, these variations are apparent in the…

We derive an analytical theory of the prestellar core initial mass function based on an extension of the Press-Schechter statistical formalism. With the same formalism, we also obtain the mass spectrum for the non self-gravitating clumps…

The stellar initial mass function (IMF) determines the relative number of stars born at a given mass. Despite the tremendous effort to establish a universal IMF, the astronomical literature offers a wealth of diverse evidence for IMF…

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…

We address the turbulent fragmentation scenario for the origin of the stellar initial mass function (IMF), using a large set of numerical simulations of randomly driven supersonic MHD turbulence. The turbulent fragmentation model…

It is usually assumed that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) takes a universal form and that there exists a direct mapping between this and the distribution of natal core masses (the core mass function, CMF). The IMF and CMF have been…

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…

Residual-gas expulsion after cluster formation has recently been shown to leave an imprint in the low-mass present-day stellar mass function (PDMF) which allowed the estimation of birth conditions of some Galactic globular clusters (GCs)…

The empirical laws of star formation suggest that galactic-scale gravity is involved, but they do not identify the actual triggering mechanisms for clusters in the final stages. Many other triggering processes satisfy the empirical laws…

Although the stellar initial mass function (IMF) has only been directly determined in star clusters it has been manifoldly applied on galaxy-wide scales. But taking the clustered nature of star formation into account the galaxy-wide IMF is…

We review the progress that has been made in observing and analyzing molecular cloud structure in recent years. Structures are self-similar over a wide range of scales with similar power law indices independent of the star forming nature of…