Star formation and the stellar initial mass function

Details Star formation and the stellar initial mass function Star formation and the stellar initial mass function

Oct 2003

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003pobeo..75....9a&link_type=abstract

Publications of the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade (ISSN 0373-3742), No. 75, p. 9 - 15 (2003). In: Proceedings of the XIII

Physics

1

Physics Of Stars, Stellar Systems, Star Formation, Imf

Scientific paper

A successful paradigm of star formation has recently been developed; the agreement between observations and theory is quite good, especially for low-mass stars. After reviewing the current theory, we present a class of models for the initial mass function (IMF) for stars forming within molecular clouds. In this picture, stars help determine their own masses through the action of stellar outflows. Using this concept, we calculate a semi-empirical mass formula (SEMF), which provides the transformation between initial conditions in molecular clouds and the masses of forming stars. For a specified SEMF, a given distribution of initial conditions predicts a corresponding IMF. In the limit in which many independent physical variables determine stellar masses, the central limit theorem shows that the IMF approaches a log-normal form. These results show that this paradigm of star formation naturally produces an IMF that is roughly consistent with observations.

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