Issue |
A&A
Volume 534, October 2011
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A10 | |
Number of page(s) | 8 | |
Section | Galactic structure, stellar clusters and populations | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201117062 | |
Published online | 21 September 2011 |
The low-mass initial mass function in the Orion nebula cluster based on HST/NICMOS III imaging⋆
1
Research & Scientific Support Department, ESA ESTEC, Keplerlaan 1, 2200 AG Noordwijk, The Netherlands
e-mail: manderse@rssd.esa.int
2
Institute for Astronomy ETH, Physics Department, HIT J 22.4, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland
3
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
Received: 11 April 2011
Accepted: 16 August 2011
We present deep HST/NICMOS Camera 3 F110W and F160W imaging of a 26′ × 33′, corresponding to 3.1 pc × 3.8 pc, non-contiguous field towards the Orion nebula cluster (ONC). The main aim is to determine the ratio of low-mass stars to brown dwarfs for the cluster as a function of radius out to a radial distance of 1.5 pc. The sensitivity of the data outside the nebulous central region is F160W ≤ 21.0 mag, significantly deeper than previous studies of the region over a comparable area. We create an extinction limited sample and determine the ratio of low-mass stars (0.08–1 M⊙) to brown dwarfs (0.02–0.08 M⊙ and 0.03–0.08 M⊙) for the cluster as a whole and for several annuli. The ratio found for the cluster within a radius of 1.5 pc is R02 = N(0.08 − 1 M⊙)/N(0.02 − 0.08 M⊙) = 1.7 ± 0.2, and R03 = N(0.08 − 1 M⊙)/N(0.03 − 0.08 M⊙) = 2.4 ± 0.2, after correcting for field stars. The ratio for the central 0.3 pc × 0.3 pc region down to 0.03 M⊙ was previously found to be R03 = 3.3-0.7+0.8, suggesting the low-mass content of the cluster is mass segregated. We discuss the implications of a gradient in the ratio of stars to brown dwarfs in the ONC in the context of previous measurements of the cluster and for other nearby star forming regions. We further discuss the current evidence for variations in the low-mass IMF and primordial mass segregation.
Key words: brown dwarfs / stars: formation / stars: pre-main sequence / stars: luminosity function, mass function / stars: low-mass
Full Table 1 is only available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/qcat?J/A+A/534/A10
© ESO, 2011
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