A binary star fraction of 76 per cent and unusual orbit parameters for the blue stragglers of NGC 188

Robert D. Mathieu () and Aaron M. Geller
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Robert D. Mathieu: University of Wisconsin–Madison, 475 North Charter Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA
Aaron M. Geller: University of Wisconsin–Madison, 475 North Charter Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA

Nature, 2009, vol. 462, issue 7276, 1032-1035

Abstract: Two shades of blue straggler 'Blue stragglers' are massive stars in clusters — where all the stars are pretty much the same age — that at their luminosity, should have evolved to become giants and white dwarfs. They are thought to be normal main-sequence stars that have gained mass through either transfer between binary companions or direct collision and merger between two stars. A study of the highly crowded star cluster M 30 suggests that both of these mechanisms are at work during the dramatic phase of the cluster core collapse. Two distinct parallel sequences of blue stragglers are present in M 30, a 'bluer' population arising from direct stellar collisions and a 'redder' one from the evolution of close binaries. Observations of the 21 blue stragglers in the old open cluster NGC 188 show that 16 (76%) are currently in binary systems, a frequency three times that found among normal solar-type main-sequence stars. Most of the NGC 188 blue stragglers are rotating faster than normal main-sequence stars of the same surface temperatures. In News & Views, Melvyn Davies reflects on what these two studies say about the origin of blue stragglers.

Date: 2009
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DOI: 10.1038/nature08568

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