The mass function of galactic clusters and its evolution

Details The mass function of galactic clusters and its evolution The mass function of galactic clusters and its evolution

Jan 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005hia....13..384d&link_type=abstract

In: Highlights of Astronomy, Vol. 13, as presented at the XXVth General Assembly of the IAU - 2003 [Sydney, Australia, 13 - 26 J

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Dense Stellar Systems

Scientific paper

We show that we can obtain a good fit to the main sequence mass functions of a large sample of Galactic clusters (young and old) with a tapered Salpeter power law distribution function with an exponential truncation. The average value of the power-law index is very close to Salpeter (~2.3) whereas the peak mass is in the range 0.1-0.5 Msolar and does not seem to vary in a systematic way with the present cluster parameters such as metal abundance and central concentration. A remarkable correlation with age however is seen in that older disc clusters have higher peak mass although this trend does not extend to globular clusters whose peak mass is lower than that of old disc clusters. We attribute this trend to the onset of mass segregation following early dynamical interactions in the loose cluster cores. Differences between globular and younger clusters may depend on the initial environment of star formation which in turn affects their total mass. Mass functions of field populations such as the solar neighbourhood and Galactic bulge are consistent with the hypothesis that they were built up over time by contributions from many functions of this type with different peak masses.

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