Table 1.
Abbreviations applied in this paper.
| Abbreviation | Stands for | Note |
|---|---|---|
| IMF | Stellar initial mass function | In embedded star clusters (star formation events in a molecular cloud) |
| ECMF | Embedded cluster mass function | The initial mass distribution of the mass in stars of star clusters |
| gwIMF | Galaxy-wide IMF | For a stellar population formed within a (10 Myr) star formation epoch |
| TIgwIMF | Time-integrated gwIMF | The gwIMF integrated over the SFH of the galaxy |
| SFR | Star formation rate | For an entire galaxy (in units of M⊙ yr−1) (a) |
| SFH | Star formation history | A function of the SFR over time |
| tsf | Star formation timescale | Characteristic timescale of the primary starburst |
| fst | Star transformation fraction | The mass of all stars ever formed divided by the initial gas mass (b) |
Notes.
Note that although the SFR densities differ spatially within a galaxy, the IGIMF theory has been empirically tested by the galaxy-wide-SFR–gwIMF relation as is demonstrated in Yan et al. (2017). Thus in our gwIMF calculation module (see Fig. 1), the galaxy-wide SFR is one of the input parameter.
Different from the efficiency of star formation that links the instantaneous SFR to gas-mass (e.g. the parameter ν in Matteucci 1994; Vazdekis et al. 1996; see also Sect. 5.1), fst is an input parameter in our code with which the initial gas mass is determined given a SFH.
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