THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOLAR NEIGHBORHOOD: II TIME-DEPENDENT IMF AND PRESENT DAY MASS FUNCTION

According to the star formation rate and metal enrichment rate given by the disk-halo model of Lee and Ann (1981), the two different forms of time-dependent initial mass function (IMF) and the present day mass function (PDMF) of nearby stars have been examined. It was shown that the constraint for the initial rapid metal enrichment requires the time-dependence of IMF at the very early phase ($t{\lesssim}5{\times}10^8$ yrs) of the solar neighborhood. The computed PDMF's show that the PDMF is nearly independent of any specific functional form of IMF as long as the latter includes a Gaussian distribution of log m. This result is due to the very small fractional mass $({\times}5%)$ of stars formed at the very early period during which the IMF is time-dependent. The computed PDMF suggests the presence of more numerous low mass stars than shown in Miller and Scalo's (1979) PDMF, supporting the possibility of the existence of low-velocity M dwarfs. According to the number distribution of stars with respect to [Fe/H], the mean age of these low mass star must be very old so as to yield the mean metal abundance $\bar{[Fe/H]}{\approx}-0.15$ for the stars in the solar neighborhood.