English

Primordial mass segregation of star clusters: The role of binary stars

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2020-04-08 v1

Abstract

Observational results of young star-forming regions suggest that star clusters are completely mass segregated at birth. As a star cluster evolves dynamically, these initial conditions are gradually lost. For star clusters with single stars only and a canonical IMF, it has been suggested that traces of these initial conditions vanish at τv\tau_{\rm v} between 3 and 3.5 half-mass relaxation times. By the means of numerical models, here we investigate the role of the primordial binary population on the loss of primordial mass segregation. We found that τv\tau_{\rm v} does not seem to depend on the binary star distribution, yielding 3<τv/trh<3.53 < \tau_{\rm v} / t_{\rm rh} < 3.5. We also conclude that the completely mass segregated clusters, even with binaries, are more compatible with the present-day ONC than the non-segregated ones.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2001.01450,
  title  = {Primordial mass segregation of star clusters: The role of binary stars},
  author = {Václav Pavlík},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.01450},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

5 pages, 2 figures, will be published in Contrib. Astron. Obs. Skalnate Pleso, 2020 (from conference "Universe of Binaries, Binaries in the Universe" in 2019)