The sub-solar Initial Mass Function in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Abstract

The Magellanic Clouds offer a unique variety of star forming regions seen as bright nebulae of ionized gas, related to bright young stellar associations. Nowadays, observations with the high resolving efficiency of the Hubble Space Telescope allow the detection of the faintest infant stars, and a more complete picture of clustered star formation in our dwarf neighbors has emerged. I present results from our studies of the Magellanic Clouds, with emphasis in the young low-mass pre-main sequence populations. Our data include imaging with the Advanced Camera for Surveys of the association LH~95 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the deepest observations ever taken with HST of this galaxy. I discuss our findings in terms of the Initial Mass Function, which we constructed with an unprecedented completeness down to the sub-solar regime, as the outcome of star formation in the low-metallicity environment of the LMC.

To appear in the Proceedings of IAU Symposium 256 "The Magellanic System: Stars, Gas, and Galaxies", 6 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (4)

• The Stellar Mass Distribution in the Giant Star Forming Region NGC 346
• NGC 346 in the Small Magellanic Cloud. III. Recent Star Formation and Stellar Clustering Properties in the Bright HII Region N 66
• The Star-Forming Region NGC 346 in the Small Magellanic Cloud with Hubble Space Telescope ACS Observations I. Photometry
• Discovery of the Pre-Main Sequence Population of the Stellar Association LH 95 in the Large Magellanic Cloud with Hubble Space Telescope ACS Observations