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| EPoS Contribution |
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Understanding the stellar initial mass function
Gilles Chabrier ENS-Lyon, Lyon, France | |
| Understanding the very origin of and the dominant physical processes responsible for the prestellar core mass function (CMF) and the final stellar initial mass function (IMF) remains at the heart of the problem of star formation. Numerical simulations now enable us to address in several of these underlying physical mechanisms. The reliability of these numerical calculations, however, can never been perfectly assessed and the results always retain some (unknown) degree of uncertainty. Therefore, it is important, besides such a numerical approach, to derive analytical theories of the CMF/IMF, both observations and simulations can be confronted to, to better understand the basic physics of star formation and of the IMF. In this talk, I will describe a recent analytical theory of star formation and of the IMF/CMF and highlight the specific roles played by turbulence, gravity, and the thermodynamic properties of the cloud, respectively. Comparisons with former theories, as well as with observations and simulations, will be discussed. Predictions of the theory will be presented in the context of the expected results of Herschel. At last, the question of whether the IMF is determined by the CMF or not will be adressed. | |
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| Caption: velocity dispersion) following Larson-type relations. | |
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Key publication
Suggested Session: Cores and Collapse, Turbulence | |