Abstract

The initial mass function (IMF) defines the mass distribution of a population of newly-formed stars, and is useful as a diagnostic of star formation physics. Most evidence indicates that the IMF is mostly universal, but some star forming regions, like Taurus, are discrepant with that universal IMF. One explanation for this discrepancy is unrecognized and unmodeled stellar multiplicity. Unresolved binary stars in variably extincted and spatially extended regions may not have the age or mass corresponding to their apparent position on an HR diagram. Binaries are often expensive or impossible to identify via observations (e.g., high-resolution imaging or spectroscopy) and thus are not easily screened from samples. In lieu of traditional observations, I have carried out a synthetic low-resolution optical spectroscopic survey of a young star-forming region to investigate the effect of unresolved binary stars on derived population statistics, including the IMF. My simulated population includes unresolved close binaries, and I determine each system’s apparent effective temperature and luminosity using spectral fitting. Then, I use evolutionary models to infer an age and a mass for each system, allowing me to explore the apparent age and mass distribution produced by a population including unresolved multiplicity.I  will present the initial results of this synthetic study, including the potential biases that may have been introduced into the IMF by past surveys of young stellar populations.