Wolf-Rayet Galaxies in SDSS-IV MaNGA. II. Metallicity Dependence of the High-mass Slope of the Stellar Initial Mass Function

• Published in: The Astrophysical journal Vol. 923; no. 1; pp. 120 - 135
• Main Authors: Liang, Fu-Heng, Li, Cheng, Li, Niu, Zhou, Shuang, Yan, Renbin, Mo, Houjun, Zhang, Wei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia The American Astronomical Society 01.12.2021; IOP Publishing
• Subjects: Astronomical models; Astronomy & Astrophysics; ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; Astrophysics; Bayesian analysis; Binary stars; Galaxies; Galaxy evolution; Initial mass function; Massive stars; Metallicity; Slopes; Spectra; Star formation; Starburst galaxies; Stars & galaxies; Statistical inference; Stellar evolution; Stellar evolutionary models; Stellar models; Wolf-Rayet stars

As hosts of living high-mass stars, Wolf-Rayet (WR) regions or WR galaxies are ideal objects for constraining the high-mass end of the stellar initial mass function (IMF). We construct a large sample of 910 WR galaxies/regions that cover a wide range of stellar metallicity (from Z ∼ 0.001 to 0.03) b...