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Observations have found the initial mass function (IMF) to be near-universal in the Milky Way and inferred variations between galaxies, but it is unclear what physical mechanism is responsible for setting it. In this talk I will present the first runs of STARFORGE, a suite of simulations following the formation of individual stars in a giant molecular cloud. This suite include runs with increasingly complex physics, starting with isothermal ideal MHD, then adding gas cooling and protostellar outflows. We show that without protostellar outflows the resulting stellar masses are an order of magnitude too high. Outflows disrupt the accretion flow around the protostar, allowing gas to fragment and additional stars to form, thereby lowering the mean stellar mass to a value similar to that observed. |
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