Star Formation in Different Environments: The Initial Mass Function

M. W. Hosek Jr., J. R. Lu, M. Andersen, T. Do, D. Kim, N. Z. Rui, P. Boyle, B. F. Williams, S. Chakrabarti, R. L. Beaton

Published 2019-03-12Version 1

The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is a fundamental property of star formation, offering key insight into the physics driving the process as well as informing our understanding of stellar populations, their by-products, and their impact on the surrounding medium. While the IMF appears to be fairly uniform in the Milky Way disk, it is not yet known how the IMF might behave across a wide range of environments, such as those with extreme gas temperatures and densities, high pressures, and low metallicities. We discuss new opportunities for measuring the IMF in such environments in the coming decade with JWST, WFIRST, and thirty-meter class telescopes. For the first time, we will be able to measure the high-mass slope and peak of the IMF via direct star counts for massive star clusters across the Milky Way and Local Group, providing stringent constraints for star formation theory and laying the groundwork for understanding distant and unresolved stellar systems.