On the Evolution of the Dense Core Mass Function

Abstract

The mass distributions of dense cores in star-forming regions are measured to have a shape similar to the initial mass function of stars. This has been generally interpreted to mean that the constituent cores will form individual stars or stellar systems at a nearly constant star formation efficiency. This article presents a series of numerical experiments evolving distributions of dense cores into stars to quantify the effects of stellar multiplicity, global core fragmentation, and a varying star formation efficiency. We find that the different evolutionary schemes have an overall small effect on the shape of the resulting distribution of stars. Our results imply that at the current level of observational accuracy, the comparison between the mass functions of dense cores and stars alone is insufficient to discern between different evolutionary models. Observations over a wide range of mass scales including the high- or low-mass tails of these distributions have the largest potential for discerning between different core evolutionary schemes.