A New Approach to Determine the Initial Mass Function in the Solar Neighborhood

摘要

Oxygen to iron abundance ratios of metal-poor stars provide information on nucleosynthesis yields from massive stars that end in Type II supernova (SN II) explosions. Using a standard model of chemical evolution of the Galaxy we have reproduced the solar neighborhood abundance data and estimated the oxygen and iron yields of genuine SN II origin. The estimated yields are compared with the theoretical yields to derive the relation between the lower and upper mass limits in each generation of stars and the initial mass function (IMF) slope. Independent of this relation, we furthermore derive the relation between the lower mass limit and the IMF slope from the stellar mass-to-light ratio in the solar neighborhood.