• Title/Summary/Keyword: blue straggler stars

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BLUE STRAGGLER STARS IN THE GLOBULAR CLUSTER M53

  • REY SOO-CHANG;LEE YOUNG-WOOK;CHUN MUN-SUK;BYUN YONG-IK
    • Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.29 no.spc1
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    • pp.137-138
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    • 1996
  • The first large-format CCD color-magnitude diagram (CMD) in the B and V passbands is presented for the Galactic globular cluster M53 (NGC 5024). We have discovered 117 new blue straggler (BS) candidates in the field of M53. The analysis of bright BS stars (V <19.0) clearly shows a bimodal radial distribution, with a high frequency in the inner and outer regions. The distribution is similar to that found in M3, a globular cluster with similar central density and concentration.

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Blue Straggler Stars and Open Clusters

  • Lee, Hyun-Uk;Chang, Heon-Young
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.40 no.2
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    • pp.58.3-58.3
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    • 2015
  • Blue Straggler Stars (BSSs), kind of unusual main sequence stars, are the brighter and bluer stars than the main sequence turn off (MSTS) stars in coeval clusters. Since the first detection in globular clusters (GCs), BSSs have been shown to reveal an anti-correlation between the luminosity of their host star cluster and the number of BSSs in the cluster. Further, conclusions based on this result can be expanded to the open clusters. BSSs seem to play an important role in GCs according to the relation between the dynamical time scale of GCs and the number of BSSs along the cluster radius. This relation, however, remains to be verified in open clusters, In this study, we divide open clusters by the existence of BSSs into two groups. Then we compare parameters between these groups to specify the role of BSSs in open clusters.

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ON THE VARIABILITY OF BLUE STRAGGLER STARS IN THE GLOBULAR CLUSTER M53

  • Rey, Soo-Chang;Lee, Young-Wook;Byun, Yong-Ik;Chun, Mun-Suk
    • Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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    • v.15 no.1
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    • pp.39-48
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    • 1998
  • We present the results of a search for photometric variable blue straggler stars(BSSs) in the globular cluster M53. Six of 151 probable BSSs are identified as variable candidates based on the robust variable star detection technique of Welch & Stetson (1993). Most variable BSS candidates appear to occupy the instability strip in the color-magnitude deagram, and they appear to have visual light amplitudes of 0.2 mag-0.3 mag. Further observations are required, however, to resolve the natrue of variabil-ity between pulsating stars and eclipsing binaries for these variable BSS candidates.

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Radial distribution of blue straggler stars in Magellanic Cloud clusters

  • Hong, Jongsuk
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.43 no.1
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    • pp.46.2-46.2
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    • 2018
  • Using the high-resolution observational data obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope, we found that there is the diversity of the radial trends of blue straggler stars (BSSs) in young massive clusters (YMCs) in the Large Magellanic Cloud unlike BSSs in old globular clusters usually showing the segregated radial distributions. To understand the dynamical processes that lead to the none-segregated or even inversely-segregated radial distribution of BSSs, we performed direct N-body simulations for YMCs. Our numerical simulations show that the presence of black hole subsystems inside the cluster centre can significantly affect the dynamical evolution of BSSs and eventually lead to none- or inversely-segregated radial distribution of BSSs.

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On the Use of the Number Count of Blue Horizontal-Branch Stars to Infer the Dominant Building Blocks of the Milky Way Halo

  • Chung, Chul;Lee, Young-Wook;Pasquato, Mario
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.40 no.2
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    • pp.57.3-57.3
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    • 2015
  • The formation of the Milky Way stellar halo is thought to be the result of merging and accretion of building blocks such as dwarf galaxies and massive globular clusters. Recently, Deason et al. (2015) suggested that the Milky Way outer halo formed mostly from big building blocks, such as dwarf spheroidal galaxies, based on the similar number ratio of blue straggler (BS) stars to blue horizontal-branch (BHB) stars. Here we demonstrate, however, that this result is seriously biased by not taking into detailed consideration on the formation mechanism of BHB stars from helium enhanced second-generation population. In particular, the high BS-to-BHB ratio observed in the outer halo fields is most likely due to a small number of BHB stars provided by GCs rather than to a large number of BS stars. This is supported by our dynamical evolution model of GCs which shows preferential removal of first generation stars in GCs. Moreover, there are sufficient number of outer halo GCs which show very high BS-to-BHB ratio. Therefore, the BS-to-BHB number ratio is not a good indicator to use in arguing that more massive dwarf galaxies are the main building blocks of the Milky Way outer halo. Several lines of evidence still suggest that GCs can contribute a signicant fraction of the outer halo stars.

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On the origin of blue straggler stars in dwarf galaxies

  • Kim, Hak-Sub;Han, Sang-Il;Joo, Seok-Joo;Yoon, Suk-Jin;Lee, Young-Wook
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.42 no.2
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    • pp.86.2-86.2
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    • 2017
  • Blue stragglers (BSs) are the objects that are brighter and bluer than the stars at main-sequence turn-off point. In this study, we present the Ca-by and VI photometry for Galactic dwarf spheroidal galaxies using Subaru/Suprime-Cam and investigate the spatial distribution characteristics of BS stars using the hk index as a photometric metallicity indicator. We compare the cumulative radial distribution of the BS stars with those of two groups of red-giant-branch (RGB) stars divided by the hk-index strength, and find that the spatial distribution of all BS stars is closer to that of hk-weak (i.e. metal-poor) RGB stars. We also find that the hk-strong BS stars are more centrally concentrated than the hk-weak ones. We will discuss the use of hk-index as a metallicity indicator for the hot BS stars and suggest possible explanations for the results in terms of the origin of BS stars in the dwarf gal.

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A Statistical Approaching about Characteristics of Galactic Open Clusters from the perspective of Blue Straggler Formation Environments

  • Lee, Hyun-Uk;Chang, Heon-Young
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.41 no.2
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    • pp.59.1-59.1
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    • 2016
  • Blue Straggler Stars(BSS) affect their host star cluster in various parameters like color, dynamics, etc. For this reason, it is important to know how to relate BSS frequency and evolution of their host stellar system. To statistical study about global properties of open clusters as the environments of BSS formation, we use three catalogues - (1) two galactic open clusters catalogues including BSS candidate, (2) Milky Way Star Cluster (MWSC) survey data. Then, we compare with the data of two BSS catalogues for test of the result of Marchi et al. 2006. We also investigate the radial mass distribution in open cluster, because it is possible that changing the gradient of radial mass distribution cause increasing the BSS frequency. When we group the open cluster into having BSS or not and other criteria, the groups show slight discrepancies, but we show some important results.

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PROPERTIES OF OPEN CLUSTERS CONTAINING BLUE STRAGGLERS

  • Lee, Hyun-Uk;Chang, Heon-Young
    • Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.50 no.3
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    • pp.51-59
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    • 2017
  • The presence of blue stragglers pose challenges to standard stellar evolution theory, in the sense that explaining their presence demands a complex interplay between stellar evolution and cluster dynamics. In the meantime, mass transfer in binary systems and stellar collisions are widely studied as a blue straggler formation channel. We explore properties of the Galactic open clusters where blue stragglers are found, in attempting to estimate the relative importance of these two favored processes, by comparing them with those resulting from open clusters in which blue stragglers are absent as of now. Unlike previous studies which require a sophisticated process in understanding the implication of the results, this approach is straightforward and has resulted in a supplementary supporting evidence for the current view on the blue straggler formation mechanism. Our main findings are as follows: (1) Open clusters in which blue stragglers are present have a broader distribution with respect to the Z-axis pointing towards the North Galactic Pole than those in which blue stragglers are absent. The probability that two distributions with respect to the Z-axis are drawn from the same distribution is 0.2%. (2) Average values of $log_10(t)$ of the clusters with blue stragglers and those without blue stragglers are $8.58{\pm}0.232$ and $7.52{\pm}0.285$, respectively. (3) The clusters with blue stragglers tend to be relatively redder than the others, and are distributed broader in colors. (4) The clusters with blue stragglers are likely brighter than those without blue stragglers. (5) Finally, blue stragglers seem to form in condensed clusters rather than simply dense clusters. Hence, we conclude that mass transfer in binaries seems to be a relatively important physical mechanism of the generation of blue stragglers in open clusters, provided they are sufficiently old.