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M. Sosey (STScI), R. M. Rich (UCLA), K. Sahu, R. Gilliland, H. Bond (STScI), T. Brown (UCAR), S Casertano, M. Livio (STScI), D. Minniti (U. Catolica de Chile), N. Panagia (STScI), A. Renzini, M. Zoccali (ESO-Germany)
We present a luminosity function (LF) for stars in the Galactic Bulge down to approximately J=25 and H=26. The LF and subsequent IMF is derived from HST-NICMOS parallel observations taken February 23 - Feb 29 2004 during the Galactic Bulge Deep Field capaign. These represent the deepest near-IR observations of the Galactic Bulge and extend previous studies of the bulge faint end mass function by almost a magnitude, pushing closer to the hydrogen burning limit for low mass stars. We discuss implications of our results on the total mass of the bulge and the currently 'missing' baryonic matter which would account for the recently observed frequency of microlensing events. Support for this work was provided by NASA through grant number GO-9750.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 5
© 2004. The American Astronomical Society.