Related papers: A Binary Origin for Blue Stragglers in Globular Cl…
Blue stragglers are anomalously massive core hydrogen-burning stars that, according to the theory of single star evolution, should not exist. They are suspected to form in mass-enhancement processes, involving binary evolution or stellar…
Blue stragglers are natural phenomena in star clusters. They originate through mass transfer in isolated binaries, as well as through encounters between two or more stars, in a complex interplay between stellar dynamics and stellar…
We present an analytic model for blue straggler formation in globular clusters. We assume that blue stragglers are formed only through stellar collisions and binary star evolution, and compare our predictions to observed blue straggler…
Stars in globular clusters are generally believed to have all formed at the same time, early in the Galaxy's history. 'Blue stragglers' are stars massive enough that they should have evolved into white dwarfs long ago. Two possible…
Blue stragglers are thought to be formed from the merger or coalescence of two stars, but the details of their formation in clusters has been difficult to disentangle. We discuss the two main formation mechanisms for blue stragglers…
Two blue-straggler sequences discovered in globular cluster M30 provide a strong constraint on the formation mechanisms of blue stragglers. We study the formation of the blue-straggler binaries through binary evolution, and find that binary…
Context. Blue Stragglers Stars (BSSs) are thought to form in globular clusters by two main formation channels: i) mergers induced by stellar collisions and ii) coalescence or mass-transfer between companions in binary systems. The detailed…
The formation of blue stragglers is still not completely understood, particularly the relationship between formation environment and mechanism. We use a large, homogeneous sample of blue stragglers in the cores of 57 globular clusters to…
(abridged) We use newly available empirical binary fractions for globular clusters to carry out a direct test of the binary evolution hypothesis, and of collisional channels that involve binary stars. More specifically, using the previously…
Globular clusters are among the most congested stellar systems in the Universe. Internal dynamical evolution drives them toward states of high central density, while simultaneously concentrating the most massive stars and binary systems in…
Recent HST observations of a large sample of globular clusters reveal that every cluster contains between 40 and 400 blue stragglers. The population does not correlate with either stellar collision rate (as would be expected if all blue…
Blue stragglers have been found in all populations. These objects are important in both stellar evolution and stellar population synthesis. Much evidence shows that blue stragglers are relevant to primordial binaries. Here, we summarize the…
This chapter explores how we might use the observed {\em statistics} of blue stragglers in globular clusters to shed light on their formation. This means we will touch on topics also discussed elsewhere in this book, such as the discovery…
Blue straggler stars are unique main-sequence stars that appear more luminous, hotter, and therefore younger, than their coeval counterparts. In star clusters, these stars are located above the cluster turn-off in the Hertzsprung-Russell…
Blue straggler stars (BSSs) are stars observed to be hotter and bluer than other stars with the same luminosity in their environment. As such they appear to be much younger than the rest of the stellar population. Two main channels have…
This review concentrates almost entirely on globular star clusters. It emphasises the increasing realisation that few of the traditional problems of star cluster astronomy can be studied in isolation: the influence of the Galaxy affects…
We created artificial color-magnitude diagrams of Monte Carlo dynamical models of globular clusters, and then used observational methods to determine the number of blue stragglers in those clusters. We compared these blue stragglers to…
Blue stragglers are anomalously luminous core hydrogen-burning stars formed through mass-transfer in binary/triple systems and stellar collisions. Their physical and evolutionary properties are largely unknown and unconstrained. Here we…
Recent high-resolution observations of the central region of Galactic globular clusters have shown the presence of a large variety of exotic stellar objects whose formation and evolution may be strongly affected by dynamical interactions.…
A primary production mechanism for blue stragglers in globular clusters is thought to be collisionally-induced mergers, perhaps mediated by dynamical encounters involving binary stars. We model the formation and evolution of such blue…