No Arabic abstract
In this chapter, we review some historical understanding and recent advances on the Initial Mass Function (IMF) and the Core Mass Function (CMF), both in terms of observations and theories. We focus mostly on star formation in clustered environment since this is suggested by observations to be the dominant mode of star formation. The statistical properties and the fragmentation behaviour of turbulent gas is discussed, and we also discuss the formation of binaries and small multiple systems.
Observations and semianalytical galaxy formation and evolution models (SAMs) have suggested the existence of a stellar mass-stellar metallicity relation (MZR), which is shown to be universal for different types of galaxies over a large range of stellar masses ($M_*sim 10^3$-$10^{11}M_odot$) and dark matter (DM) halo masses ($M_{rm halo}sim 10^9$-$10^{15}h^{-1}M_odot$). In this work, we construct a chemical evolution model to investigate the origin of the MZR, including both the effects of gas inflows and outflows in galaxies. We solve the MZR from the chemical evolution model, by assuming that the cold gas mass ($M_{rm cold}$) and the stellar feedback efficiency ($beta$) follow some power-law scaling relationships with $M_*$ during the growth of a galaxy, i.e., $M_{rm cold}propto M_*^{alpha_{rm gs}}$ and $betapropto M_*^{alpha_{beta{rm s}}}$. We use the SAM to obtain these power-law scaling relations, which appear to be roughly universal over a large range of stellar masses for both satellites and central galaxies within a large range of halo masses. The range of the MZRs produced by our models is in a narrow space, which provides support to the universality of the MZRs. The formation of the MZR is a result caused jointly by that the cold gas fraction decreases with increasing $M_*$ and by that the stellar feedback efficiency decreases with increasing $M_*$ in the galaxy growth, and the exponent in the MZR is around $-alpha_{beta{rm s}}$ or $1-alpha_{rm gs}$. The MZR represents an average evolutional track for the stellar metallicity of a galaxy. The comparison of our model with some previous models for the origin of MZRs is also discussed.
One of the fundamental tasks of dynamical astronomy is to infer the distribution of mass in a stellar system from a snapshot of the positions and velocities of its stars. The usual approach to this task (e.g., Schwarzschilds method) involves fitting parametrized forms of the gravitational potential and the phase-space distribution to the data. We review the practical and conceptual difficulties with this approach and describe a novel statistical method for determining the mass distribution that does not require determining the phase-space distribution of the stars. We show that this new estimator out-performs other distribution-free estimators for the harmonic and Kepler potentials.
We present continuum and molecular line observations at 230 GHz and 345 GHz from the Sub-millimeter Array (SMA) toward three protostars in the Perseus L1448N region. The data are from the large project Mass Assembly of Stellar Systems and their Evolution with the SMA (MASSES). Three dust continuum sources, Source B, Source NW, and Source A, are detected at both frequencies. These sources have corresponding emission peaks in C18O (J=2-1), 13CO (J=2-1), and HCO+ (J=4-3), and have offsets with N2D+ (J=3-2) peaks. High angular resolution data from a complimentary continuum survey with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array show that Source B is associated with three 8 mm continuum objects, Source NW with two, and Source A remains single. These results suggest that multiplicity in L1448N exists at different spatial scales from a few thousand AU to < 100 AU. Velocity gradients in each source obtained from two-dimensional fits to the SMA C18O emission are found to be perpendicular to within 20 degrees of the outflow directions as revealed by 12CO (J=2-1). We have observed that Sources B and NW with multiplicity have higher densities than Source A without multiplicity. This suggests that thermal Jeans fragmentation can be relevant in the fragmentation process. However, we have not observed a difference in the ratio between rotational and gravitational energy between sources with and without multiplicity. We also have not observed a trend between non-thermal velocity dispersions and the level of fragmentation. Our study has provided the first direct and comprehensive comparison between multiplicity and core properties in low-mass protostars, although based on small number statistics.
Halo stars orbit within the potential of the Milky Way and hence their kinematics can be used to understand the underlying mass distribution. However, the inferred mass distribution depends sensitively upon assumptions made on the density and the velocity anisotropy profiles of the tracers. Also, there is a degeneracy between the parameters of the halo and that of the disk or bulge. Here, we decompose the Galaxy into bulge, disk and dark matter halo and then model the kinematic data of the halo BHB and K-giants from the SEGUE. Additionally, we use the gas terminal velocity curve and the Sgr A$^*$ proper motion. With $R_odot = 8.5$kpc, our study reveals that the density of the stellar halo has a break at $17.2^{+1.1}_{-1.0}$ kpc, and an exponential cut-off in the outer parts starting at $97.7^{+15.6}_{-15.8}$kpc. Also, we find the velocity anisotropy is radially biased with $beta_s= 0.4pm{0.2}$ in the outer halo. We measure halo virial mass $M_{text{vir}} = 0.80^{+0.31}_{-0.16} times 10^{12} M_{odot}$, concentration $c=21.1^{+14.8}_{-8.3}$, disk mass of $0.95^{+0.24}_{-0.30}times10^{11} M_{odot}$, disk scale length of $4.9^{+0.4}_{-0.4}$ kpc and bulge mass of $0.91^{+0.31}_{-0.38} times 10^{10} M_{odot}$. The mass of halo is found to be small and this has important consequences. The giant stars reveal that the outermost halo stars have low velocity dispersion interestingly suggesting a truncation of the stellar halo density rather than a small overall mass of the Galaxy. Our estimates of local escape velocity $v_{rm esc} = 550.9^{+32.4}_{-22.1}$ kms$^{-1}$ and dark matter density $rho^{rm DM}_{odot} = 0.0088^{+0.0024}_{-0.0018} M_{odot} {rm pc^{-3}} $ ($0.35^{+0.08}_{-0.07}$ GeV cm$^{-3}$) are in good agreement with recent estimates. Some of the above estimates are depended on the adopted value of $R_odot$ and of outer power-law index of the tracer number density.
We investigate the formation of the stellar halos of four simulated disk galaxies using high resolution, cosmological SPH + N-Body simulations. These simulations include a self-consistent treatment of all the major physical processes involved in galaxy formation. The simulated galaxies presented here each have a total mass of ~10^12 M_sun, but span a range of merger histories. These simulations allow us to study the competing importance of in-situ star formation (stars formed in the primary galaxy) and accretion of stars from subhalos in the building of stellar halos in a LambdaCDM universe. All four simulated galaxies are surrounded by a stellar halo, whose inner regions (r < 20 kpc) contain both accreted stars, and an in-situ stellar population. The outer regions of the galaxies halos were assembled through pure accretion and disruption of satellites. Most of the in-situ halo stars formed at high redshift out of smoothly accreted cold gas in the inner 1 kpc of the galaxies potential wells, possibly as part of their primordial disks. These stars were displaced from their central locations into the halos through a succession of major mergers. We find that the two galaxies with recently quiescent merger histories have a higher fraction of in-situ stars (~20-50%) in their inner halos than the two galaxies with many recent mergers (~5-10% in-situ fraction). Observational studies concentrating on stellar populations in the inner halo of the Milky Way will be the most affected by the presence of in-situ stars with halo kinematics, as we find that their existence in the inner few tens of kpc is a generic feature of galaxy formation.