Binary stars and the fundamental initial mass function

Details Binary stars and the fundamental initial mass function Binary stars and the fundamental initial mass function

Feb 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001mnras.321..149m&link_type=abstract

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 321, Issue 1, pp. 149-154.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

21

Binaries: General, Stars: Luminosity Function, Mass Function, Binaries: General, Stars: Luminosity Function, Mass Function

Scientific paper

We have carried out Monte Carlo simulations in which we generate a random pairing of objects drawn from a pre-assumed single-star power-law initial mass function (IMF), which we call the fundamental IMF. We show how the mass functions of primary stars and secondary stars and the mass function of the total mass of systems (if we could resolve them) differ from the underlying fundamental IMF for different slopes of this IMF. We also compare our results with the observed IMF, the binary frequency and the binary mass-ratio distributions for field stars and conclude that the fundamental IMF of subsolar mass stars could be steeper than is currently believed. In other words, the low-mass turn-over of the observed (`apparent') IMF could be spurious, if the main-sequence binary fraction of field stars is close to 100per cent (perhaps owing to invisible companions).

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