Determination of the IMF in the LMC Stellar Cluster NGC 2156

Abstract

We present a study on the IMF of the stellar cluster NGC 2156 in the LMC from deep HST-WFPC2 images in the bands F555W and F814W. The study is part of a larger program to investigate whether the IMF at low stellar masses is dependent on local conditions by observing young globular clusters in the LMC and the SMC. We detected stars down to a limiting magnitude of m555 = 26, which corresponds to stellar masses of ~ 0:6 M at the distance of the LMC (50:11 Kpc). A comparison of the cluster CMD with theoretical isochrones indicates an age of 49±5 Myr. We performed a completeness analysis and determined the background stellar contamination to correct the observed LF and derive the MF of the cluster using the standard ML-relation for main sequence stars. Given the fact that the cluster is very young, the present day MF is expected to be a good approximation to the IMF.