Stellar and substellar IMF are disjoint in the present model (black histograms). The dotted lines indicate an underlying power law of the mass spectrum in the form dN/ dm ∝ m^{− α} with α = 0.3,1.3, and 2.3 (from left to right). Objects from the peripheral branch of the IMF lying above the HBML (vertical dashed line) are stars forming in circumstellar disks and star-like BDs stem from the stellar branch of the IMF lying below the HBML. Both populations mix and form the system IMF (31% and ≈ 100% binary fraction for the BD and stellar branch, respectively; see Sect. 3.1). The discontinuity is thus hidden from an observer (grey histogram). Figure taken from Marks et al. (2015).