Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2010-04-22
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
23 pages, 27 figures, emulateapj format. Accepted for publication in AJ
Scientific paper
We report on new measurements of the luminosity function (LF) and mass function (MF) of field low-mass dwarfs derived from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 6 (DR6) photometry. The analysis incorporates ~15 million low-mass stars (0.1 Msun < M < 0.8 Msun), spread over 8,400 square degrees. Stellar distances are estimated using new photometric parallax relations, constructed from ugriz photometry of nearby low-mass stars with trigonometric parallaxes. We use a technique that simultaneously measures Galactic structure and the stellar LF from 7 < M_r < 16. We compare the LF to previous studies and convert to a MF using the mass-luminosity relations of Delfosse et al., 2000. The system MF, measured over -1.0 < log M/Msun < -0.1, is well-described by a log-normal distribution with Mo = 0.25 Msun. We stress that our results should not be extrapolated to other mass regimes. Our work generally agrees with prior low-mass stellar MFs and places strong constraints on future star-formation studies of the Milky Way.
Bochanski John J.
Covey Kevin R.
Golimowski David A.
Hawley Suzanne L.
Ivezic Zeljko
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