What does the IMF really tell us about star formation?

Details What does the IMF really tell us about star formation? What does the IMF really tell us about star formation?

2009-10-23

arxiv.org/abs/0910.4424v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Galaxy Astrophysics

To be published in the proceedings of IAU Symposium 262 "Stellar Populations - Planning for the Next Decade"

Scientific paper

Obtaining accurate measurements of the initial mass function (IMF) is often considered to be the key to understanding star formation, and a universal IMF is often assumed to imply a universal star formation process. Here, we illustrate that different modes of star formation can result in the same IMF, and that, in order to truly understand star formation, a deeper understanding of the primordial binary population is necessary. Detailed knowledge on the binary fraction, mass ratio distribution, and other binary parameters, as a function of mass, is a requirement for recovering the star formation process from stellar population measurements.

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