The relation between accretion rates and the initial mass function in
  hydrodynamical simulations of star formation
  We analyse a hydrodynamical simulation of star formation. Sink particles in
the simulations which represent stars show episodic growth, which is presumably
accretion from a core that can be regularly replenished in response to the
fluctuating conditions in the local environment. The accretion rates follow
$\dot{m} \propto m^{2/3}$, as expected from accretion in a gas-dominated
potential, but with substantial variations over-laid on this. The growth times
follow an exponential distribution which is tapered at long times due to the
finite length of the simulation. The initial collapse masses have an
approximately lognormal distribution with already an onset of a power-law at
large masses. The sink particle mass function can be reproduced with a
non-linear stochastic process, with fluctuating accretion rates $\propto
m^{2/3}$, a distribution of seed masses and a distribution of growth times. All
three factors contribute equally to the form of the final sink mass function.
We find that the upper power law tail of the IMF is unrelated to Bondi-Hoyle
accretion.
