Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2010-09-09
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
8 pages, 4 figures; to be published in "UP: Have Observations Revealed a Variable Upper End of the Initial Mass Function?", M.
Scientific paper
In this article I briefly describe how deep radio surveys may provide a means to identify variations in the upper end of the initial mass function (IMF) in star-forming galaxies at high redshifts (i.e., $z\gtrsim$3). At such high redshifts, I argue that deep radio continuum observations at frequencies $\gtrsim$10 GHz using next generation facilities (e.g., EVLA, MeerKAT, SKA/NAA) will likely provide the most accurate measurements for the ionizing photon rates (star formation rates; SFRs) of normal galaxies since their non-thermal emission should be highly suppressed due to the increased inverse Compton (IC) losses from the cosmic microwave background (CMB), leaving only thermal (free-free) emission detectable. Thus, a careful analysis of such observations in combination with future ALMA and JWST data, measuring the rest-frame far-infrared and UV emission from the same population of galaxies, may yield the best means to search for variability in the stellar IMF at such epochs.
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