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The initial mass function of the rich young cluster NGC 1818 in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
- Source :
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society . Jul2009, Vol. 396 Issue 3, p1665-1674. 10p. 3 Charts, 9 Graphs. - Publication Year :
- 2009
-
Abstract
- We use deep Hubble Space Telescope photometry of the rich, young (∼20- to 45-Myr old) star cluster NGC 1818 in the Large Magellanic Cloud to derive its stellar mass function (MF) down to . This represents the deepest robust MF thus far obtained for a stellar system in an extragalactic, low-metallicity environment. Combining our results with the published MF for masses above , we obtain a complete present-day MF. This is a good representation of the cluster's initial MF (IMF), particularly at low masses, because our observations are centred on the cluster's uncrowded half-mass radius. Therefore, stellar and dynamical evolution of the cluster will not have affected the low-mass stars significantly. The NGC 1818 IMF is well described by both a lognormal and a broken power-law distribution with slopes of and (Salpeter-like) for masses in the range from 0.15 to and greater than , respectively. Within the uncertainties, the NGC 1818 IMF is fully consistent with both the Kroupa solar neighbourhood and the Chabrier lognormal mass distributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00358711
- Volume :
- 396
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 41784397
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.14838.x