Does turbulence determine the initial mass function?

作者：Liptai David^*; Price Daniel J; Wurster James; Bate Matthew R

来源：Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2017, 465(1): 105-110.

DOI：10.1093/mnras/stw2770

• brown dwarfs
• stars: formation
• stars: low-mass
• stars: luminosity function, mass function

We test the hypothesis that the initial mass IMF) is determined by the density probability distribution PDF) produced by supersonic turbulence. We compare 14 simulations of star cluster formation in 50 M-circle dot 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 (rho). This suggests that the density PDF, while determining the star formation rate, is not the primary driver of the IMF.

• 出版日期2017-2-11