Does turbulence determine the initial mass function?

D. Liptai; Daniel J. Price; J. Wurster; Matthew R. Bate

doi:10.1093/mnras/stw2770

Does turbulence determine the initial mass function?

D. Liptai, Daniel J. Price, J. Wurster, Matthew R. Bate

School of Physics and Astronomy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

We test the hypothesis that the initial mass function (IMF) is determined by the density probability distribution function (PDF) produced by supersonic turbulence. We compare 14 simulations of star cluster formation in 50 M⊙ molecular cloud cores where the initial turbulence contains either purely solenoidal or purely compressive modes, in each case resolving fragmentation to the opacity limit to determine the resultant IMF. We find statistically indistinguishable IMFs between the two sets of calculations, despite a factor of 2 difference in the star formation rate and in the standard deviation of log (ρ). This suggests that the density PDF, while determining the star formation rate, is not the primary driver of the IMF.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	105-110
Number of pages	6
Journal	Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume	465
Issue number	1
Early online date	28 Oct 2016
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stw2770
Publication status	Published - 11 Feb 2017

Keywords

Brown dwarfs
Stars: formation
Stars: low-mass
Stars: luminosity function
Mass function

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10.1093/mnras/stw2770

Liptai-2016-Does-turbulence-determine-MNRAS-105
© 2016 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. This work has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies or with permission. Permission for further reuse of this content should be sought from the publisher or the rights holder. This is the final published version of the work, which was originally published at https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stw2770
Final published version, 5.77 MB

https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.07619

Cite this

@article{082fd2f8e3b6453cb98cfa8b2c0a16e2,

title = "Does turbulence determine the initial mass function?",

abstract = "We test the hypothesis that the initial mass function (IMF) is determined by the density probability distribution function (PDF) produced by supersonic turbulence. We compare 14 simulations of star cluster formation in 50 M⊙ molecular cloud cores where the initial turbulence contains either purely solenoidal or purely compressive modes, in each case resolving fragmentation to the opacity limit to determine the resultant IMF. We find statistically indistinguishable IMFs between the two sets of calculations, despite a factor of 2 difference in the star formation rate and in the standard deviation of log (ρ). This suggests that the density PDF, while determining the star formation rate, is not the primary driver of the IMF.",

keywords = "Brown dwarfs, Stars: formation, Stars: low-mass, Stars: luminosity function, Mass function",

author = "D. Liptai and Price, {Daniel J.} and J. Wurster and Bate, {Matthew R.}",

year = "2017",

month = feb,

day = "11",

doi = "10.1093/mnras/stw2770",

language = "English",

volume = "465",

pages = "105--110",

journal = "Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society",

issn = "0035-8711",