Statistical Confirmation of a Stellar Upper Mass Limit
- 7 January 2005
- journal article
- Published by American Astronomical Society in The Astrophysical Journal
- Vol. 620 (1) , L43-L46
- https://doi.org/10.1086/428396
Abstract
We derive the expectation value for the maximum stellar mass (m_max) in an ensemble of N stars, as a function of the IMF upper-mass cutoff (m_up) and N. We statistically demonstrate that the upper IMF of the local massive star census observed thus far in the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds clearly exhibits a universal upper mass cutoff around 120 - 200 M_sun for a Salpeter IMF, although the result is more ambiguous for a steeper IMFKeywords
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