THE VMC SURVEY. XVIII. RADIAL DEPENDENCE OF THE LOW-MASS, 0.55–0.82 M⊙ STELLAR MASS FUNCTION IN THE GALACTIC GLOBULAR CLUSTER 47 TUCANAE

We use near-infrared observations obtained as part of the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) Survey of the Magellanic Clouds (VMC), as well as two complementary Hubble Space Telescope (HST) data sets, to study the luminosity and mass functions (MFs) as a function of clustercentric radius of the main-sequence stars in the Galactic globular cluster 47 Tucanae. The HST observations indicate a relative deficit in the numbers of faint stars in the central region of the cluster compared with its periphery, for 18.75 <= MF606w <= 20.9 mag (corresponding to a stellar mass range of 0.55