The aim of this talk is to review the methodology required to translate the observed luminosity function of a stellar sample into the mass function of the stars constituting the sample. Emphasis is given to the stellar models which necessarily underlie this operation, as the mass function is proportional to the derivative of the mass{luminosity relation, and this latter quantity can not be deri...

We derive constraints on the mass-temperature relation of galaxy clusters from their observed luminosity-temperature relation and X-ray temperature function. Adopting the isothermal gas in hydrostatic equilibrium embedded in the universal density profile of dark matter halos, we compute the X-ray luminosity for clusters as a function of their hosting halo mass. We find that in order to reproduc...

Non-parametric, empirically based, models for associating galaxy luminosities with halo/subhalo masses are being developed by several groups and we present here an updated version of the Vale & Ostriker (2004) version of this model. This is based on a more accurate, self-consistent treatment of subhalo mass loss and revised results for the subhalo mass function to address this question anew. We...

Using HST and the WFPC2 we have acquired very deep Vand I-band photometry of stars in NGC 2420 and NGC 2477 to study cluster luminosity functions at approximately solar metallicity. We have determined these cluster luminosity functions down to MI = 10.5 (0.2 M⊙) and find that the luminosity function of NGC 2420 turns over at MI ≈ 9.0, and possibly stops altogether by MI ≈ 9.5. The luminosity fu...

We investigate newtonian description of accreting compact bodies with hard surfaces, including luminosity and selfgravitation of polytropic perfect fluids. This nonlinear integro-differential problem reduces, under appropriate boundary conditions, to an algebraic relation between luminosity and the gas abundance in stationary spherically symmetric flows. There exist, for a given luminosity, asy...

We present a new model atmosphere analysis of nine central stars of planetary nebulae. This study is based on a new generation of realistic stellar model atmospheres for hot stars; state-of-the-art, hydrodynamically consistent, spherically symmetric model atmospheres that have been shown to correctly reproduce the observed UV spectra of massive Population I O-type stars. The information provide...

We present the results of non-linear pulsation modeling of bump Cepheids in the LMC and SMC. By obtaining an optimal fit to the observed MACHO V and R lightcurves we can determine the fundamental parameters of each Cepheid, namely mass, luminosity, effective temperature, distance modulus and reddening. We are able to describe the mass-luminosity relation for core-He burning intermediate mass st...

We have studied the relation between HI linewidth and optical luminosity in two samples of dwarf galaxies, with special attention to the accuracy of the inclination correction. The first sample consists of rotationally supported galaxies, and has DDO 154 as a prototype. They have HI linewidths significantly larger than predicted by an extrapolation of the Tully-Fisher relation. The deviation fr...