A binary origin for ‘blue stragglers’ in globular clusters

Christian Knigge (), Nathan Leigh and Alison Sills
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Christian Knigge: University of Southampton, School of Physics and Astronomy
Nathan Leigh: McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M1, Canada
Alison Sills: McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M1, Canada

Nature, 2009, vol. 457, issue 7227, 288-290

Abstract: The origin of blue stragglers Theoretically the abnormally blue and massive stars known as blue stragglers should have evolved off the main stellar sequence and died long ago. But they are still to be found in globular clusters. Two scenarios to account for their presence have been suggested — direct stellar collisions or binary evolution. A new analysis of the data from known blue stragglers reveals a clear, but sublinear, correlation between the number of blue stragglers in a cluster core and the total stellar mass contained within it. This finding favours binary systems as the source for blue stragglers.

Date: 2009
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DOI: 10.1038/nature07635

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