Reconstructing the Arches I: Constraining the Initial Conditions
  We have performed a series of N-body simulations to model the Arches cluster.
Our aim is to find the best fitting model for the Arches cluster by comparing
our simulations with observational data and to constrain the parameters for the
initial conditions of the cluster. By neglecting the Galactic potential and
stellar evolution, we are able to efficiently search through a large parameter
space to determine e.g. the IMF, size, and mass of the cluster. We find, that
the cluster's observed present-day mass function can be well explained with an
initial Salpeter IMF. The lower mass-limit of the IMF cannot be well
constrained from our models. In our best models, the total mass and the virial
radius of the cluster are initially (5.1 +/- 0.8) 10^4 Msun and 0.76 +/- 0.12
pc, respectively. The concentration parameter of the initial King model is w0 =
3-5.
