A mass transfer origin for blue stragglers in NGC 188 as revealed by half-solar-mass companions

Aaron M. Geller () and Robert D. Mathieu
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Aaron M. Geller: University of Wisconsin–Madison
Robert D. Mathieu: University of Wisconsin–Madison

Nature, 2011, vol. 478, issue 7369, 356-359

Abstract: Companions sustained blue stragglers Blue straggler stars challenge the standard theory of stellar evolution, as these main sequence stars are brighter and bluer than others in a cluster thought to have formed at about the same time. In theory, they should have already evolved into giants and stellar remnants. Explanations offered to account for these stragglers include stellar collisions, mass transfer from a companion star or mergers in binaries. Aaron Geller and Robert Mathieu have combined precise observations spanning more than a decade with numerical simulations to show that the binary companions of the majority of the blue stragglers in the old open cluster NGC 188 are consistent with a mass transfer origin, and inconsistent with predictions of the other suggested formation channels.

Date: 2011
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DOI: 10.1038/nature10512

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