Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Degree

Master of Science

Program

Applied Mathematics

Supervisor

Dr. Shantanu Basu

Abstract

We use the Modified Lognormal Power-law (MLP) probability distribution function to model the behaviour of the mass function (MF) of young and populous stellar populations in different environments. We begin by modeling the MF of NGC1711, a simple stellar population (SSP) in the Large Magellanic Cloud as a pilot case. We then use model selection criterion to differentiate between candidate models. Using the MLP we find that the stellar catalogue of NGC1711 follows a pure power-law behaviour below the completeness limit with the slope α = 2.75 for dN/dlnm ∝ m^(−α+1) in the mass range 0.89 M⊙ to 7.75 M⊙. Furthermore, we explore that the MLP takes a truncated form for fixed stopping time for accretion. By using model selection criterion, we conclude that the MLP serves as the most useful candidate to model lognormal, power-law or hybrid behaviour of the MF.

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