Table 1.
Initial mass function acronyms summary.
| Acronym | Explanation |
|---|---|
| IMF | stellar initial mass function of stars formed |
| during one star formation event in an initially | |
| gravitationally bound region | |
| cIMF | the sum of the IMFs over larger |
| regions within a galaxy | |
| gwIMF | initial stellar mass function of newly |
| formed stars in a whole galaxy | |
| IGIMF | theoretical framework that allows us |
| to compute the gwIMF | |
| cIGIMF | cIMF computed withing IGIMF framework |
| caninvgwIMF | gwIMF is invariant and equal to the |
| invariant canonical stellar IMF |
Notes. This table summarizes the acronyms and variables used in this paper to characterize initial stellar masses of stellar populations over different scales. As newly we assume the timescale δt = 10 Myr (Sect. 3.2) in this text. We note that the conservative benchmark or null hypothesis to compare models with is the assumption that gwIMF=stellar IMF, assuming in this particular case that the stellar IMF is an invariant scale-free probability density distribution function. That is, in this case gwIMF is referred to as the canonical invariant gwIMF (caninvgwIMF) case. We also note that “local” is used throughout this text to mean a small region in a galaxy. It is not the solar neighbourhood.
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