Kouwenhoven, M.B.N., Goodwin, S.P., de Grijs, R. et al. (2 more authors) (2014) How does a low-mass cut-off in the stellar IMF affect the evolution of young star clusters? Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 445 (3). pp. 2256-2267. ISSN 0035-8711
Abstract
We investigate how different stellar initial mass functions (IMFs) can affect the mass-loss and survival of star clusters. We find that IMFs with radically different low-mass cut-offs (between 0.1 and 2 M⊙) do not change cluster destruction time-scales as much as might be expected. Unsurprisingly, we find that clusters with more high-mass stars lose relatively more mass through stellar evolution, but the response to this mass-loss is to expand and hence significantly slow their dynamical evolution. We also argue that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to have clusters with different IMFs that are initially ‘the same’, since the mass, radius and relaxation times depend on each other and on the IMF in a complex way. We conclude that changing the IMF to be biased towards more massive stars does speed up mass-loss and dissolution, but that it is not as dramatic as might be thought.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2014 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. |
Keywords: | stars: kinematics and dynamics; stars: low-mass; stars: luminosity function, mass function; open clusters and associations: general |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 27 Oct 2017 09:16 |
Last Modified: | 27 Oct 2017 09:16 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stu1877 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/mnras/stu1877 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:122729 |