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| Paper: |
The massive star content of the Magellanic Clouds |
| Volume: |
7, Properties of Hot Luminous Stars: Boulder-Munich Workshop |
| Page: |
30 |
| Authors: |
Massey, Philip |
| Abstract: |
The Magellanic Clouds offer a nearly ideal chance to study massive star-formation processes. The present knowledge of the massive star content of the Clouds is briefly reviewed. Although incompleteness precludes any conclusions for the field population at this time, recent data on OB associations permits the direct determination of the initial mass function (IMF) in these regions. So far, the evidence suggests that the slope of the IMF is the same for massive stars in the LMC and SMC, and is consistent with that of the Galaxy. The mass of the highest mass stars found so far are also similar. This implies, then, that the upper mass limit cutoff to the IMF, and that the slope of the IMF, may not be strong functions of metallicity, at least for metal abundances of solar and less. Some of the implications of this are discussed, and the path of future work is examined. |
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