Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 436, Issue 4, Pages 3309-3320Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stt1806
Keywords
stars: luminosity function; mass function; galaxies: evolution; galaxies: star clusters: general; galaxies: star formation; galaxies: stellar content
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Funding
- Programa Nacional de Astronomia y Astrofisica of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [AYA2010-21322-C03-02]
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Observational studies are showing that the galaxy-wide stellar initial mass function (IMF) is top-heavy in galaxies with high star formation rates (SFRs). Calculating the integrated galactic stellar initial mass function (IGIMF) as a function of the SFR of a galaxy, it follows that galaxies which have or which formed with SFRs > 10 M-circle dot yr(-1) would have a top-heavy IGIMF in excellent consistency with the observations. Consequently and in agreement with observations, elliptical galaxies would have higher mass-to-light ratios as a result of the overabundance of stellar remnants compared to a stellar population that formed with an invariant canonical stellar IMF. For the Milky Way, the IGIMF yields very good agreement with the disc- and the bulge IMF determinations. Our conclusions are that purely stochastic descriptions of star formation on the scales of a parsec and above are falsified. Instead, star formation follows the laws, stated here as axioms, which define the IGIMF theory. We also find evidence that the power-law index beta of the embedded cluster mass function decreases with increasing SFR. We propose further tests of the IGIMF theory through counting massive stars in dwarf galaxies.
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