scholarly journals The Initial Stellar Mass Function from Random Sampling in a Turbulent Fractal Cloud

1997 ◽  
Vol 486 (2) ◽  
pp. 944-954 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce G. Elmegreen
2020 ◽  
Vol 501 (2) ◽  
pp. 1568-1590
Author(s):  
Lukas J Furtak ◽  
Hakim Atek ◽  
Matthew D Lehnert ◽  
Jacopo Chevallard ◽  
Stéphane Charlot

ABSTRACT We present new measurements of the very low mass end of the galaxy stellar mass function (GSMF) at z ∼ 6−7 computed from a rest-frame ultraviolet selected sample of dropout galaxies. These galaxies lie behind the six Hubble Frontier Field clusters and are all gravitationally magnified. Using deep Spitzer/IRAC and Hubble Space Telescope imaging, we derive stellar masses by fitting galaxy spectral energy distributions and explore the impact of different model assumptions and parameter degeneracies on the resulting GSMF. Our sample probes stellar masses down to $M_{\star }\gt 10^{6}\, \text{M}_{\odot}$ and we find the z ∼ 6−7 GSMF to be best parametrized by a modified Schechter function that allows for a turnover at very low masses. Using a Monte Carlo Markov chain analysis of the GSMF, including accurate treatment of lensing uncertainties, we obtain a relatively steep low-mass end slope $\alpha \simeq -1.96_{-0.08}^{+0.09}$ and a turnover at $\log (M_T/\text{M}_{\odot})\simeq 7.10_{-0.56}^{+0.17}$ with a curvature of $\beta \simeq 1.00_{-0.73}^{+0.87}$ for our minimum assumption model with constant star formation history (SFH) and low dust attenuation, AV ≤ 0.2. We find that the z ∼ 6−7 GSMF, in particular its very low mass end, is significantly affected by the assumed functional form of the star formation history and the degeneracy between stellar mass and dust attenuation. For example, the low-mass end slope ranges from $\alpha \simeq -1.82_{-0.07}^{+0.08}$ for an exponentially rising SFH to $\alpha \simeq -2.34_{-0.10}^{+0.11}$ when allowing AV of up to 3.25. Future observations at longer wavelengths and higher angular resolution with the James Webb Space Telescope are required to break these degeneracies and to robustly constrain the stellar mass of galaxies on the extreme low-mass end of the GSMF.


2016 ◽  
Vol 458 (4) ◽  
pp. 3478-3478 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Mortlock ◽  
Christopher. J. Conselice ◽  
William G. Hartley ◽  
Ken Duncan ◽  
Caterina Lani ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Vol 614 ◽  
pp. A43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sami Dib ◽  
Shantanu Basu

We investigate the dependence of a single-generation galactic mass function (SGMF) on variations in the initial stellar mass functions (IMF) of stellar clusters. We show that cluster-to-cluster variations of the IMF lead to a multi-component SGMF where each component in a given mass range can be described by a distinct power-law function. We also show that a dispersion of ≈0.3 M⊙ in the characteristic mass of the IMF, as observed for young Galactic clusters, leads to a low-mass slope of the SGMF that matches the observed Galactic stellar mass function even when the IMFs in the low-mass end of individual clusters are much steeper.


2021 ◽  
Vol 503 (4) ◽  
pp. 5115-5133
Author(s):  
A A Khostovan ◽  
S Malhotra ◽  
J E Rhoads ◽  
S Harish ◽  
C Jiang ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT The H α equivalent width (EW) is an observational proxy for specific star formation rate (sSFR) and a tracer of episodic, bursty star-formation activity. Previous assessments show that the H α EW strongly anticorrelates with stellar mass as M−0.25 similar to the sSFR – stellar mass relation. However, such a correlation could be driven or even formed by selection effects. In this study, we investigate how H α EW distributions correlate with physical properties of galaxies and how selection biases could alter such correlations using a z = 0.47 narrow-band-selected sample of 1572 H α emitters from the Ly α Galaxies in the Epoch of Reionization (LAGER) survey as our observational case study. The sample covers a 3 deg2 area of COSMOS with a survey comoving volume of 1.1 × 105 Mpc3. We assume an intrinsic EW distribution to form mock samples of H α emitters and propagate the selection criteria to match observations, giving us control on how selection biases can affect the underlying results. We find that H α EW intrinsically correlates with stellar mass as W0∝M−0.16 ± 0.03 and decreases by a factor of ∼3 from 107 M⊙ to 1010 M⊙, while not correcting for selection effects steepens the correlation as M−0.25 ± 0.04. We find low-mass H α emitters to be ∼320 times more likely to have rest-frame EW>200 Å compared to high-mass H α emitters. Combining the intrinsic W0–stellar mass correlation with an observed stellar mass function correctly reproduces the observed H α luminosity function, while not correcting for selection effects underestimates the number of bright emitters. This suggests that the W0–stellar mass correlation when corrected for selection effects is physically significant and reproduces three statistical distributions of galaxy populations (line luminosity function, stellar mass function, EW distribution). At lower stellar masses, we find there are more high-EW outliers compared to high stellar masses, even after we take into account selection effects. Our results suggest that high sSFR outliers indicative of bursty star formation activity are intrinsically more prevalent in low-mass H α emitters and not a byproduct of selection effects.


2020 ◽  
Vol 159 (3) ◽  
pp. 127
Author(s):  
Peter Zeidler ◽  
Antonella Nota ◽  
Eva K. Grebel ◽  
Elena Sabbi ◽  
Anna Pasquali ◽  
...  

2015 ◽  
Vol 801 (1) ◽  
pp. L12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis E. Abramson ◽  
Michael D. Gladders ◽  
Alan Dressler ◽  
Augustus Oemler ◽  
Bianca Poggianti ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 493 (2) ◽  
pp. 2490-2505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dian P Triani ◽  
Manodeep Sinha ◽  
Darren J Croton ◽  
Camilla Pacifici ◽  
Eli Dwek

ABSTRACT We study the dust evolution in galaxies by implementing a detailed dust prescription in the SAGE semi-analytical model (SAM) for galaxy formation. The new model, called Dusty SAGE, follows the condensation of dust in the ejecta of Type II supernovae and asymptotic giant branch stars, grain growth in the dense molecular clouds, destruction by supernovae shocks, and the removal of dust from the interstellar medium (ISM) by star formation, reheating, inflows, and outflows. Our model successfully reproduces the observed dust mass function at redshift z = 0 and the observed scaling relations for dust across a wide range of redshifts. We find that the dust mass content in the present Universe is mainly produced via grain growth in the ISM. By contrast, in the early Universe, the primary production mechanism for dust is the condensation in stellar ejecta. The shift of the significant production channel for dust characterizes the scaling relations of dust-to-gas (DTG) and dust-to-metal (DTM) ratios. In galaxies where the grain growth dominates, we find positive correlations for DTG and DTM ratios with both metallicity and stellar mass. On the other hand, in galaxies where dust is produced primarily via condensation, we find negative or no correlation for DTM and DTG ratios with either metallicity or stellar mass. In agreement with observation showing that the circumgalactic medium contains more dust than the ISM, our model also shows the same trend for z < 4. Our SAM is publicly available at https://github.com/dptriani/dusty-sage.


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