Fragmentation in Molecular Clouds and the Origin of the Stellar Initial Mass Function A White Paper for the Astro2010 Decadal Survey Submitted to the “Planetary Systems and Star Formation” Panel

Executive Summary The stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) is remarkably consistent over a host of environments in the Galactic neighborhood. The physical processes responsible for producing a seemingly invariant IMF have long been the subject of theoretical investigation. Recently, a potential link has been made between the mass distribution of clumps in nearby molecular clouds and the stellar IMF. To make a definitive determination if the stellar IMF is imprinted in the cloud structure, future observations need to show 1) that the mass function of clumps in molecular clouds is similar to the stellar/substellar IMF down to ∼0.01 M ⊙ , and 2) that the clump mass function is invariant to environment as is the stellar IMF. Such surveys can be conducted with the next generation of large format bolometer cameras and hetero-dyne arrays on 25-100 m class single aperture telescopes (CCAT, GBT, LMT) and with high resolution interferometric observations (ALMA, CARMA, EVLA, SMA) of targeted regions.