Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2007-05-11
Publ.Astron.Soc.Pac.119:592,2007
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
17 pages, 11 figures - Accepted for publication in PASP (review)
Scientific paper
10.1086/519533
Following an old idea of Fritz Zwicky, we make an attempt to establish a universal mass function for astronomical objects on all scales. The object classes considered are: solar system planets and small bodies, exoplanets, brown dwarfs, stars and stellar remnants, open and globular clusters, molecular clouds, galaxies, groups and clusters of galaxies. For comparison we also include CDM halos taken from numerical simulations. We show that the mass functions of individual object classes, when properly normalized, can indeed be concatenated to build a surprisingly continuous mass function of the universe, from approximately M = 10^(-20)Msun (sub-kilometer size asteroids) up to M = 10^(16)Msun (rich clusters of galaxies), covering 36 orders of magnitude in mass. Most individual mass functions roughly follow a power law of the form phi(M) propto M^(-2). A notable exception are planets and small bodies which seem to obey a flatter distribution. CDM halos from high-resolution numerical simulations show a very similar relation, again of universal slope -2, from clusters of galaxies all the way down to the planetary mass scale. On the scale of stars and star clusters this is a remarkable coincidence, as the formation processes involved are thought to be totally different (bottom-up gravitational clustering of DM halos versus top-down gravoturbulent fragmentation of gas clouds).
Binggeli Bruno
Hascher Tatjana
No associations
LandOfFree
Is There a Universal Mass Function? does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Is There a Universal Mass Function?, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Is There a Universal Mass Function? will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-411112