Work

The IMF Package: A Toolkit Implementing Mass Functions and Statistical Tools to Analyze Them

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Mass functions are used in all areas of astrophysics. The stellar initial mass function (IMF), in particular, plays a central role in modeling stellar populations in galaxies. However, few dedicated tools for working directly with the IMF and its precursor functions are widely available. We present the imf package, a Python library integrated into the wider scientific Python ecosystem that implements common and variant forms of mass functions, especially the IMF and its pre- and protostellar equivalents, as probability distribution functions based on SciPy’s statistics architecture. This package enables the performance of operations such as sampling and integration on a wide array of highly customizable mass functions. imf is publicly available on the Python package index pypi under the project name initial_mass_function .

Source: The Astronomical Journal

DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/ae8aef

Authors: Theo Richardson, Adam Ginsburg, Sergey E. Koposov

Institutions: University of Florida, University of Cambridge, University of Edinburgh

Language: English

Topic: Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena

Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $4,499

Funders: National Science Foundation, Science and Technology Facilities Council