The future of IMF studies with the ELT and MICADO
Aims. In this work we aim to estimate the lowest stellar mass that MICADO at the ELT will be able to reliably detect given a stellar density and distance. We also show that instrumental effects that will play a critical role, and report the number of young clusters that will be accessible for IMF studies in the local Universe with the ELT. Methods. We used SimCADO, the instrument simulator package for the MICADO camera, to generate observations of 56 dense stellar regions with densities similar to the cores of young stellar clusters. We placed the cluster fields at distances between 8 kpc and 5 Mpc from the Earth, implying core densities from 10^2 to 10^5 stars arcsec^ 2, and determined the lowest reliably observable mass for each stellar field through point spread function (PSF) fitting photometry. Results. Our results show that stellar densities of 2 Msun will be resolved in fields of <10^4 stars arcsec^ 2 allowing the high mass end of the IMF to be studied in all galaxies out to and including NGC300.