THE LUMINOSITY FUNCTION AND INITIAL MASS FUNCTION FOR THE PLEIADES CLUSTER

  • LEE SEE WOO (Department of Astronomy, Seoul National University) ;
  • SUNG HWANKYUNG (Department of Astronomy, Seoul National University)
  • Published : 1995.04.01

Abstract

In the best observed Pleiades cluster, the luminosity function(LF) and mass function(MF) for main sequence(MS) stars extended to $Mv{\approx}15.5(V{\approx}21)$ are very similar to the initial luminosity function(ILF) and initial mass function(IMF) for field stars in the solar neighborhood showing a bump at log $m{\simeq}-0.05$ and a dip at log $m{\simeq}-0.12$. This dip is equivalent to the Wielen dip appearing in the LF for the field stars. The occurence of these bump and dip is independent of adopted mass-luminosity relation(MLR) . and their characteristics could be explained by a time-dependent bimodal IMF. The model with this IMF gives a total cluster mass of $\~700M_\bigodot,\;\~25$ brown dwarfs and $\~3$ white dwarfs if the upper mass limit of progenitor of white dwarf is greater than $4.5M_\bigodot$. The cluster age on the basis of LF for brightest stars is given by $\~8\times10^7yr$ and all stars in the cluster lie along the single age sequence in the C-M diagram without showing a large dispersion from the sequence.

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