Related papers: Multiple stellar populations and their influence o…
We take a closer look at our published results of determination of ages, metallicities, helium mass fractions and abundances of chemical elements in Galactic globular clusters in order to find possible signatures of the phenomenon of…
Stellar collisions are an important formation channel for blue straggler stars in globular and old open clusters. Hydrodynamical simulations have shown that the remnants of such collisions are out of thermal equilibrium, are not strongly…
The hydrodynamics of stellar collisions and mergers is discussed in the context of blue straggler formation. Emphasis is placed on the very important question of hydrodynamic mixing during the merger process. Recent results of…
This paper explores the quantitative connection between globular clusters and the diffuse stellar population of the galaxies they are associated with. Both NGC 1399 and NGC 4486 (M87) are well suited for this kind of analysis due to their…
In this chapter we consider two formation channels for blue straggler stars: 1) the merger of two single stars via a collision, and 2) those produced via mass transfer within a binary. We review how computer simulations show that stellar…
Pseudo two-colour diagrams or Chromosome maps (ChM) indicate that NGC 2808 host five different stellar populations. The existing ChMs have been derived by the Hubble Space Telescope photometry, and comprise of stars in a small field of view…
Recent pieces of evidence have revealed that most, and possibly all, globular star clusters are composed of groups of stars that formed in multiple episodes with different chemical compositions. In this sense, it has also been argued that…
We present a new approach to understanding star-to-star helium abundance variations within globular clusters. We begin with detailed radiation hydrodynamics simulations of cluster formation within giant molecular clouds, and investigate the…
Globular cluster systems (GCS) frequently show a bi-modal distribution of the cluster integrated colours. This work explores the arguments to support the idea that the same feature is shared by the diffuse stellar population of the galaxy…
Enhancement and spread of helium among globular cluster stars have been recently suggested as a way to explain the horizontal branch blue tails, in those clusters which show a primordial spread in the abundances of CNO and other elements…
We report the results of new SPH calculations of parabolic collisions between two main-sequence stars in a globular cluster. Such collisions are directly relevant to the formation of blue stragglers. In particular, we consider parent stars…
We present a technique to identify the most probable dynamical formation scenario for an observed binary or triple system containing one or more merger products or, alternatively, to rule out the possibility of a dynamical origin. Our…
We present a homogeneous catalogue for blue straggler, red giant branch, horizontal branch and main-sequence turn-off stars in a sample of 35 clusters taken from the ACS Survey for Globular Clusters. As a result of the superior photometry…
The spreads in chemical abundances inferred by recent precision observations suggest that some or possibly all globular clusters can no longer be considered as simple stellar populations. The most striking case is omega Cen in the sense…
We use Cycle 21 Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations and HST archival ACS Treasury observations of 30 Galactic Globular Clusters to characterize two distinct stellar populations. A sophisticated Bayesian technique is employed to…
Blue straggler stars present as secure members in the Galactic open clusters form a major challenge to the conventional picture of evolutionary population synthesis based on the stellar evolution theory of single stars, as illustrated in…
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…
We explain the multiple populations recently found in the 'prototype' Globular Cluster (GC) NGC 2808 in the framework of the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) scenario. The chemistry of the five -or more- populations is approximately consistent…
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…
We investigate the possibility that multiple populations in globular clusters arise as a natural by-product of massive star-cluster formation. We use 3D radiative hydrodynamics simulations for the formation of young massive clusters to…