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The Initial Mass Function (IMF) is a crucial
component in our understanding of star formation and in the
interpretation of the integrated light from stellar populations.
In recent years advances have been made on the observational
knowledge of the brown dwarf IMF in nearby star forming regions and
the stellar IMF in massive clusters. However, the shape of the
low-mass IMF is observationally poorly constrained, in particular in
massive star forming regions.
I present our recent results on the shape of the sub-stellar IMF,
based on our observations of nearby young star forming regions.
Moving on to more distant regions, I'll present results on the
stellar IMF in the super-star cluster R136 in the Large Magellanic
Cloud.
Finally, I will discuss the directions of future work on the
low-mass IMF with a focus on approved HST near-infrared observations
of the young massive Galactic star cluster Westerlund 1. With
an estimated mass of 50,000 Msun, the 4 Myr old cluster is the most
massive young cluster known in the Galaxy and one of the most
massive clusters known in the Local Group. The determination of the
IMF will be discussed as well as observations to determine the
dynamical mass, and hence the fate, of the cluster. |
