Sampling methods for stellar masses and the mmax-Mecl relation in the starburst dwarf galaxy NGC 4214

摘要

It has been claimed in the recent literature that a non-trivial relationbetween the mass of the most-massive star, mmax, in a star cluster and itsembedded star cluster mass (the mmax-Mecl relation) is falsified byobservations of the most-massive stars and the Halpha luminosity of young starclusters in the starburst dwarf galaxy NGC 4214. Here it is shown by comparingthe NGC 4214 results with observations from the Milky Way that NGC 4214 agreesvery well with the predictions of the the mmax-Mecl relation and the integratedgalactic stellar initial mass function (IGIMF) theory and that this differencein conclusions is based on a high degree of degeneracy between expectationsfrom random sampling and those from the mmax-Mecl relation, but are also due tointerpreting mmax as a truncation mass in a randomly sampled IMF. Additionalanalysis of galaxies with lower SFRs than those currently presented in theliterature will be required to break this degeneracy.