Broken Power Law (Kroupa 2001)

Broken Power Law (Kroupa 2001)

Form

Kroupa (2001) suggested an extending the Salpeter (1955) IMF to a piecewise defined power law with several slopes:

\[\begin{split} \xi(M) = \xi_0\begin{cases} M^{\alpha_1}, & M \leq M_\textrm{transition} \\ \xi_\textrm{continuity}M^{\alpha_2}, & M_\textrm{transition} \leq M \end{cases} \end{split}\]
where for continuity one requires
\[\xi_\textrm{continuity} = (M_\textrm{transition})^{\alpha_1 - \alpha_2}.\]

The values when fit to data are:

\[\begin{split}\begin{gather*} \alpha_1 = -1.3 \\ \alpha_2 = -2.3 \\ M_\textrm{transisiton} = 0.5M_\odot \end{gather*}\end{split}\]

Note

The original paper by Kroupa (2001) includes an additional mass range, below \(0.08M_\odot\). This is below the limit where fusion can happen, so these objects are brown dwarves instead of stars, and are ignored.

Implemented in

This is implemented in the BrokenPowerLawIMF class, where the user is free to pick whatever parameters they like or use the default (same as above).

Integrals

As mentioned in power law integrals, there are special case values of \(\alpha\), that are not explicity mentioned here. I will also only consider the case \(M_\textrm{min} < M_\textrm{transition} < M_\textrm{max}\). If this is not the case, simply ignore the term from that branch.

Total number of stars

\[\begin{split}\begin{align*} \int^{M_\textrm{max}}_{M_\textrm{min}} \xi(M)\mathrm{d}M &= \int^{M_\textrm{transition}}_{M_\textrm{min}} \xi_0 M^{\alpha_1}\textrm{d}M + \int^{M_\textrm{max}}_{M_\textrm{transition}} \xi_0\xi_\textrm{continuity}M^{\alpha_2} \textrm{d}M \\ &= \left[\xi_0 \frac{M^{\alpha_1+1}}{\alpha_1+1}\right]^{M_\textrm{transition}}_{M_\textrm{min}} + \left[\xi_0\xi_\textrm{continuity}\frac{M^{\alpha_2+1}}{\alpha_2+1}\right]^{M_\textrm{max}}_{M_\textrm{transition}} \\ &= \xi_0 \frac{M_\textrm{transition}^{\alpha_1+1} - M_\textrm{min}^{\alpha_1+1}}{\alpha_1 + 1} + \xi_0 \xi_\textrm{continuity} \frac{M_\textrm{max}^{\alpha_2+1} - M_\textrm{transition}^{\alpha_2+1}}{\alpha_2 + 1}. \end{align*}\end{split}\]

Total mass of stars

\[\begin{split}\begin{align*} \int^{M_\textrm{max}}_{M_\textrm{min}} M\xi(M)\mathrm{d}M &= \int^{M_\textrm{transition}}_{M_\textrm{min}} \xi_0 M^{\alpha_1+1}\textrm{d}M + \int^{M_\textrm{max}}_{M_\textrm{transition}} \xi_0\xi_\textrm{continuity}M^{\alpha_2+1} \textrm{d}M \\ &= \left[\xi_0 \frac{M^{\alpha_1+2}}{\alpha_1+2}\right]^{M_\textrm{transition}}_{M_\textrm{min}} + \left[\xi_0\xi_\textrm{continuity}\frac{M^{\alpha_2+2}}{\alpha_2+2}\right]^{M_\textrm{max}}_{M_\textrm{transition}} \\ &= \xi_0 \frac{M_\textrm{transition}^{\alpha_1+2} - M_\textrm{min}^{\alpha_1+2}}{\alpha_1 + 2} + \xi_0 \xi_\textrm{continuity} \frac{M_\textrm{max}^{\alpha_2+2} - M_\textrm{transition}^{\alpha_2+2}}{\alpha_2 + 2}. \end{align*}\end{split}\]