Metallicity and the Universality of the IMF

Understand

The stellar initial mass function (IMF), along with the star formation rate, is one of the fundamental properties that any theory of star formation must explain.

• An interesting feature of the IMF is that it appears to be remarkably universal across a wide range of environments.
• Particularly, there appears to be little variation in either the characteristic mass of the IMF or its high-mass tail between clusters with different metallicities.
• Previous attempts to understand this apparent independence of metallicity have not accounted for radiation feedback from high-mass protostars, which can dominate the energy balance of the gas in star-forming regions.