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Direct Evidence for Stellar Initial Mass Function Variation in the Milky Way

  • Authors: Charles L. Steinhardt, Carter Meyerhoff, Alexander J. Luening

Charles L. Steinhardt et al 2026 The Astrophysical Journal Letters 1005 .

  • Provider: AAS Journals

Caption: Figure 3.

Mass functions of NGC 6067 at various stages of the analysis all yield similar break points, demonstrating that the existence and location of the break mass are features of the data rather than induced by analytical techniques. (a) Raw stellar counts already exhibit a break mass at 1.23 ± 0.02 M. (b) Applying a correction for Gaia selection changes the slopes but not the break mass. (c) Applying a further correction for unresolved binaries yields a break mass of 1.28 ± 0.14 M for the mass function used in this work. (d) If an incorrect cluster age of 4 Gyr is used instead of the correct 1.25 Gyr, the break mass remains unchanged.

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