Comment on "An excess of massive stars in the local 30 Doradus starburst" [SSA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1807.09772


Schneider et al. (Science, 2018) used an ad hoc statistical method in their calculation of the stellar initial mass function. Adopting an improved approach, we reanalyse their data and determine a power law exponent of $2.05_{-0.14}^{+0.13}$. Alternative assumptions regarding data set completeness and the star formation history model can shift the inferred exponent to $2.11_{-0.19}^{+0.17}$ and $2.15_{-0.13}^{+0.13}$, respectively.

Read this paper on arXiv…

W. Farr and I. Mandel
Fri, 27 Jul 18
6/75

Comments: published as a technical comment in Science