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We present the results of a 0. 5-0. 9" FWHM imaging survey at K (2. 2 micron) and H (1. 6 micron) covering 5. 1' x 5. 1' centered on Theta 1C Ori, the most massive star in the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC). At the age and distance of this cluster, and in the absence of extinction, the hydrogen burning limit (0. 08 Mo) occurs at K~13. 5 mag while an object of mass 0. 02 Mo has K~16. 2 mag. Our photometry is complete for source detection at the 7 sigma level to K~17. 5 mag and thus is sensitive to objects as low-mass as 0. 02 Mo seen through visual extinction values as high as 10 magnitudes. We use the observed magnitudes, colors, and star counts to constrain the shape of the inner ONC stellar mass function across the hydrogen burning limit. After determining the stellar age and near-infrared excess properties of the optically visible stars in this same inner ONC region, we present a new technique that incorporates these distributions when extracting the mass function from the observed density of stars in the K- (H-K) diagram. We find that our data are inconsistent with a mass function that rises across the stellar/sub-stellar boundary. Instead, we find that the most likely form of the inner ONC mass function is one that rises to a peak around 0. 15 Mo, and then declines across the hydrogen-burning limit with slope N (log M) ~ M^ (0. 57+/-0. 05). We emphasize that our conclusions apply to the inner 0. 71 pc x 0. 71 pc of the ONC only; they may not apply to the ONC as a whole where some evidence for general mass segregation has been found.
Hillenbrand et al. (Fri,) studied this question.