Galaxy And Mass Assembly: The Star Formation Rate Dependence of the Stellar Initial Mass Function

Details Galaxy And Mass Assembly: The Star Formation Rate Dependence of the Stellar Initial Mass Function Galaxy And Mass Assembly: The Star Formation Rate Dependence of the Stellar Initial Mass Function

Jun 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aspc..440..299g&link_type=abstract

UP2010: Have Observations Revealed a Variable Upper End of the Initial Mass Function? ASP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 440. Pro

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

The stellar initial mass function (IMF) describes the distribution in stellar masses produced from a burst of star formation. For more than fifty years, the implicit assumption underpinning most areas of research involving the IMF is that it is universal, regardless of time and environment. We measure the high-mass IMF slope for a sample of low-to-moderate redshift galaxies from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly survey. The large range in luminosities and galaxy masses of the sample permits the exploration of underlying IMF dependencies. A strong IMF-star formation rate dependency is discovered, which shows that highly star forming galaxies form proportionally more massive stars (they have IMFs with flatter power-law slopes) than galaxies with low star formation rates. This has a significant impact on a wide variety of galaxy evolution studies, all of which rely on assumptions about the slope of the IMF. Our result is supported by, and provides an explanation for, the results of numerous recent explorations suggesting a variation of or evolution in the IMF.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Galaxy And Mass Assembly: The Star Formation Rate Dependence of the Stellar Initial 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 Galaxy And Mass Assembly: The Star Formation Rate Dependence of the Stellar Initial Mass Function, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Galaxy And Mass Assembly: The Star Formation Rate Dependence of the Stellar Initial Mass Function will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-911219