Evidence for a Turnover in the Initial Mass Function of Low-Mass Stars and Substellar Objects: Analysis from an Ensemble of Young Clusters

We present a combined analysis of the low-mass initial mass function (IMF) for seven star-forming regions. We first demonstrate that the ratios of stars to brown dwarfs are consistent with a single underlying IMF. By assuming that the underlying IMF is the same for all seven clusters and by combinin...

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Published inThe Astrophysical journal Vol. 683; no. 2; pp. L183 - L186
Main Authors Andersen, M, Meyer, M. R, Greissl, J, Aversa, A
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Chicago, IL IOP Publishing 20.08.2008
University of Chicago Press
Subjects
Astronomy
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
stars: formation
Young cluster
Mass function
Star formation
Stellar mass
Low-mass stars
Brown dwarf stars
Initial mass function
stars: luminosity function, mass function-stars: pre-main-sequence
Star clusters
stars: low-mass, brown dwarfs
Luminosity function
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Summary:We present a combined analysis of the low-mass initial mass function (IMF) for seven star-forming regions. We first demonstrate that the ratios of stars to brown dwarfs are consistent with a single underlying IMF. By assuming that the underlying IMF is the same for all seven clusters and by combining the ratio of stars to brown dwarfs from each cluster, we constrain the shape of the brown dwarf IMF and find it to be consistent with a lognormal IMF. This provides the strongest constraint yet that the substellar IMF turns over .
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ISSN:1538-4357
0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.1086/591473