An excess of massive stars in the local 30 Doradus starburst

Abstract

The 30 Doradus star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud is a nearby analog of large star-formation events in the distant universe. We determined the recent formation history and the initial mass function (IMF) of massive stars in 30 Doradus on the basis of spectroscopic observations of 247 stars more massive than 15 solar masses ([Formula: see text]). The main episode of massive star formation began about 8 million years (My) ago, and the star-formation rate seems to have declined in the last 1 My. The IMF is densely sampled up to 200 [Formula: see text] and contains 32 ± 12% more stars above 30 [Formula: see text] than predicted by a standard Salpeter IMF. In the mass range of 15 to 200 [Formula: see text], the IMF power-law exponent is [Formula: see text], shallower than the Salpeter value of 2.35.

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Authors/Creators:	Schneider, F.R.N. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5965-1022 Sana, H. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6656-4130 Evans, C.J. Bestenlehner, J.M. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0859-5139 Castro, N. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0521-473X Fossati, L. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4426-9530 Gräfener, G. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5249-8547 Langer, N. Ramírez-Agudelo, O.H. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9379-5409 Sabín-Sanjulián, C. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4364-3244 Simón-Díaz, S. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1168-3524 Tramper, F. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8631-7700 Crowther, P.A. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6000-6920 de Koter, A. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1198-3167 de Mink, S.E. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9336-2825 Dufton, P.L. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7075-5420 Garcia, M. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0316-1208 Gieles, M. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9716-1868 Hénault-Brunet, V. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2927-5465 Herrero, A. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8768-2179 Izzard, R.G. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0378-4843 Kalari, V. Lennon, D.J. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3063-4867 Maíz Apellániz, J. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0825-3443 Markova, N. Najarro, F. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9124-0039 Podsiadlowski, P. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8338-9677 Puls, J. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0874-1669 Taylor, W.D. van Loon, J.T. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1272-3017 Vink, J.S. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8445-4397 Norman, C. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5222-5717
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© 2018 The Authors. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Science. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy.
Dates:	Accepted: 30 November 2017 Published (online): 5 January 2018 Published: 5 January 2018
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:	19 Jan 2018 12:11
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2018 14:30
Published Version:	https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aan0106
Status:	Published
Publisher:	American Association for the Advancement of Science
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aan0106
Related URLs:	Author

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An excess of massive stars in the local 30 Doradus starburst

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