The importance of coagulation in the making of the stellar mass spectrum is studied using two coagulation indicators and the model of Lejeune and Bastien. A search is made for correlations between these indicators and the physical characteristics of the four types of stellar groups investigated here: open clusters (54 cases), OB associations (16 cases), globular clusters (16 cases), and galaxies (13 cases). Although (1) coagulation is certainly not the only physical process which determines eventually the stellar mass spectrum and (2) the Lejeune and Bastien analytical solution describes only approximately the physics involved, we found that it fits the mass spectra extremely well. The fits are definitely much better than the usual power-law fits. The results show that coagulation seems to be pretty independent of the conditions at which it takes place. The means of the coagulation indicators for each type of stellar group are found to be quite close to each other (within the limits of uncertainty), which adds more weight to these results. It is also found that the effects of coagulation are difficult to show, at least for stellar groups with ages greater than ≈ 10~7 yr. A method of assessing the amount of mass loss by the cluster is also described.
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