The Salpeter IMF and its descendants

Abstract

The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is the key to understanding the matter cycle in the Universe. Edwin Salpeter's paper of 1955 founded this research field. Evidence today, however, challenges the initial mass function as an invariant probability distribution function.

arXiv commentpublished in Nature Astronomy, Vol.3, p.481-484 (2019) as News and Views, 3 pages, 1 figure

References in corpus (11)

• Galactic Stellar and Substellar Initial Mass Function
• On the variation of the Initial Mass Function
• From filamentary clouds to prestellar cores to the stellar IMF: Initial highlights from the Herschel Gould Belt survey
• Comparison of H-alpha and UV Star Formation Rates in the Local Volume: Systematic Discrepancies for Dwarf Galaxies
• Evidence for top-heavy stellar initial mass functions with increasing density and decreasing metallicity
• The stellar and sub-stellar IMF of simple and composite populations
• Stellar populations dominated by massive stars in dusty starburst galaxies across cosmic time
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): The star formation rate dependence of the stellar initial mass function
• The impact of the metallicity and star formation rate on the time-dependent galaxy-wide stellar initial mass function
• Gaia DR2 reveals a star formation burst in the disc 2-3 Gyr ago
• The formation of UCDs and massive GCs: Quasar-like objects for testing for a variable stellar initial mass function (IMF)

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Fragmentation induced starvation in Population III star formation: a resolution study
• A bottom-heavy initial mass function for the likely-accreted blue-halo stars of the Milky Way
• The Core Mass Function in the Orion Nebula Cluster Region: What Determines the Final Stellar Masses?
• Physical Models for the Astrophysical Population of Black Holes: Application to the Bump in the Mass Distribution of Gravitational Wave Sources
• Explanation of high redshift luminous galaxies from JWST by early dark energy model
• The Fornax3D project: Intrinsic Correlations between Orbital Properties and the Stellar Initial Mass Function
• Population synthesis of exoplanets accounting for orbital variations due to stellar evolution
• The Pedagogical Representation of Mass Functions with LEGO and their Origin
• High-redshift Galaxies from JWST Observations in More Realistic Dark Matter Halo Models
• Population synthesis of AX J1745.6-2901 X-ray nova type binaries with rapidly decreasing orbital periods
• Compact object populations over cosmic time I. BOSSA: a Binary Object environment-Sensitive Sampling Algorithm
• Constraints on Population I/II neutron star-black hole binary formation by gravitational wave and radio observations
• Cosmic Radioactivity and Galactic Chemical Evolution
• The evolution of relative frequencies of ONe and CO SNe Ia