Stellar populations in globular cluster cores: evidence for a peculiar trend among red giant branch stars
Stellar populations in globular cluster cores: evidence for a peculiar trend among red giant branch stars
We investigate the relationship between the mass of a globular cluster core and the sizes of its various stellar populations in a sample of 56 globular clusters. The number of core red giant branch stars is found to scale sub-linearly with core mass at the 3σ confidence level, whereas the relation is linear to within one standard deviation for main-sequence turn-off (MSTO) and sub-giant branch stars.
We interpret our results as evidence for a surplus of red giant branch stars in the least massive cluster cores which is not seen for MSTO and sub-giant branch stars. We explore various possibilities for the source of this discrepancy, discussing our results primarily in terms of the interplay between the cluster dynamics and stellar evolution.
stellar dynamics, stars, evolution, statistics, globular clusters, general
L179-L183
Leigh, N.
2173cdad-52fd-45ac-b06f-c00b8a028098
Sills, A.
7b27ed2e-cb6f-4a04-9957-9d3d3bd5c4d3
Knigge, C.
8cf21885-1d3d-4ec7-aa02-fdd7dc0721e7
October 2009
Leigh, N.
2173cdad-52fd-45ac-b06f-c00b8a028098
Sills, A.
7b27ed2e-cb6f-4a04-9957-9d3d3bd5c4d3
Knigge, C.
8cf21885-1d3d-4ec7-aa02-fdd7dc0721e7
Leigh, N., Sills, A. and Knigge, C.
(2009)
Stellar populations in globular cluster cores: evidence for a peculiar trend among red giant branch stars.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, 399 (1), .
(doi:10.1111/j.1745-3933.2009.00749.x).
Abstract
We investigate the relationship between the mass of a globular cluster core and the sizes of its various stellar populations in a sample of 56 globular clusters. The number of core red giant branch stars is found to scale sub-linearly with core mass at the 3σ confidence level, whereas the relation is linear to within one standard deviation for main-sequence turn-off (MSTO) and sub-giant branch stars.
We interpret our results as evidence for a surplus of red giant branch stars in the least massive cluster cores which is not seen for MSTO and sub-giant branch stars. We explore various possibilities for the source of this discrepancy, discussing our results primarily in terms of the interplay between the cluster dynamics and stellar evolution.
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Published date: October 2009
Keywords:
stellar dynamics, stars, evolution, statistics, globular clusters, general
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 144165
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/144165
ISSN: 1745-3933
PURE UUID: 4e3ef2ec-b31b-4cc1-910e-2a7a45a19b8f
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Date deposited: 16 Apr 2010 15:50
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 00:45
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Author:
N. Leigh
Author:
A. Sills
Author:
C. Knigge
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