SPIDER VIII - Constraints on the Stellar Initial Mass Function of Early-type Galaxies from a Variety of Spectral Features

Understand

We perform a spectroscopic study to constrain the stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) by using a large sample of 24,781 early-type galaxies from the SDSS-based SPIDER survey.

• Clear evidence is found of a trend between IMF and central velocity dispersion, sigma0, evolving from a standard Kroupa/Chabrier IMF at 100km/s towards a more bottom-heavy IMF with increasing sigma0, becoming steeper than the Salpeter function at sigma0>220km/s.
• We analyze a variety of spectral indices, corrected to solar scale by means of semi-empirical correlations, and fitted simultaneously with extended MILES (MIUSCAT) stellar population models.
• Our analysis suggests that sigma0, rather than [alpha/Fe], drives the IMF variation.