Related papers: Open clusters: time-scales, core collapse and blue…
In globular clusters, blue straggler stars are heavier than the average star, so dynamical friction strongly affects them. The radial distribution of BSS, normalized to a reference population, appears bimodal in a fraction of Galactic GCs,…
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…
In open star clusters, where all members formed at about the same time, blue straggler stars are typically observed to be brighter and bluer than hydrogen-burning main-sequence stars, and therefore should already have evolved into giant…
This paper is part of a series devoted to the study of the stellar populations in brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs), aimed at setting constraints on the formation and evolution of these objects. We have obtained high signal-to-noise ratio,…
We present the results of a new study of mass segregation in two-component star clusters, based on a large number of numerical N-body simulations using our recently developed dynamical Monte Carlo code. Specifically, we follow the dynamical…
The fraction of binary stars is an important ingredient to interpret globular cluster dynamical evolution and their stellar population. We investigate the properties of main-sequence binaries measured in a uniform photometric sample of 59…
We measure the projected rotational velocities ($v \sin i$) of the solar-like blue straggler stars (BSSs) in the old ($\geq4$ Gyr) open clusters M67, NGC 188, and NGC 6791. We find that the BSS rotation distribution shows a Kraft break…
We present and discuss new BVI CCD photometry in the field of the globular cluster Arp~2, which is considered a member of the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy. The main goal of this investigation is to study of the statistics and spatial…
We used high-quality images acquired with the WFC3 on board the HST to probe the blue straggler star (BSS) population of the Galactic globular cluster NGC 362. We have found two distinct sequences of BSS: this is the second case, after M…
Using HST/WFPC2 data, we have performed a comparative study of the Blue Straggler Star (BSS) populations in the central regions of the globular clusters AM 1, Eridanus, Palomar 3, and Palomar 4. Located at distances RGC > 50 kpc from the…
We present evidence for mass segregation in the outer-halo globular cluster Palomar 14, which is intuitively unexpected since its present-day two-body relaxation time significantly exceeds the Hubble time. Based on archival Hubble Space…
We have used ESO telescopes at La Silla and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in order to obtain accurate B,V,I CCD photometry for the stars located within 200" (~= 2 half-mass radii, r_h = 1.71') from the center of the cluster NGC 6101.…
We have used multi-band high resolution HST WFPC2 and ACS observations combined with wide field ground-based observations to study the blue straggler star (BSS) population in the galactic globular cluster NGC 6388. As in several other…
In a previous paper we introduced a new method for simulating collisional gravitational $N$-body systems with linear time scaling on $N$, based on the Multi-Particle Collision (MPC) approach. This allows us to simulate globular clusters…
The numerous and massive young star clusters in blue compact galaxies (BCGs) are used to investigate the properties of their hosts. We test whether BCGs follow claimed relations between cluster populations and their hosts, such as the the…
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…
We present a focused multiwavelength study of blue straggler stars (BSSs) in the intermediate-age open cluster Tombaugh 2, located in the outer Galactic disk, to constrain the dominant formation pathways of BSSs in a low-density…
The level of central segregation of Blue Straggler stars proved to be an excellent tracer of the dynamical evolution of old star clusters (the so-called "dynamical clock"), both in the Milky Way and in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The…
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…
We present semi-analytical models and simplified $N$-body simulations with $10^4$ and $10^5$ particles aimed at probing the role of dynamical friction (DF) in determining the radial distribution of Blue Straggler Stars (BSSs) in globular…