1,844 research outputs found
Kinematic fingerprint of core-collapsed globular clusters
Dynamical evolution drives globular clusters toward core collapse, which
strongly shapes their internal properties. Diagnostics of core collapse have so
far been based on photometry only, namely on the study of the concentration of
the density profiles. Here we present a new method to robustly identify
core-collapsed clusters based on the study of their stellar kinematics. We
introduce the \textit{kinematic concentration} parameter, , the ratio
between the global and local degree of energy equipartition reached by a
cluster, and show through extensive direct -body simulations that clusters
approaching core collapse and in the post-core collapse phase are strictly
characterized by . The kinematic concentration provides a suitable
diagnostic to identify core-collapsed clusters, independent from any other
previous methods based on photometry. We also explore the effects of incomplete
radial and stellar mass coverage on the calculation of and find that our
method can be applied to state-of-art kinematic datasets.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS Lette
Increasing Writing Center Visibility: The Political Rationale
This presentation and paper offer a political rationale for the Purdue Writing Lab Repository project. It discusses the need to make writing center research institutionally viable, and how the repository can contribute both to preserving and disseminating writing center scholarship and to presenting writing center administration as institutional research
Models of Individual Blue Stragglers
This chapter describes the current state of models of individual blue
stragglers. Stellar collisions, binary mergers (or coalescence), and partial or
ongoing mass transfer have all been studied in some detail. The products of
stellar collisions retain memory of their parent stars and are not fully mixed.
Very high initial rotation rates must be reduced by an unknown process to allow
the stars to collapse to the main sequence. The more massive collision products
have shorter lifetimes than normal stars of the same mass, while products
between low mass stars are long-lived and look very much like normal stars of
their mass. Mass transfer can result in a merger, or can produce another binary
system with a blue straggler and the remnant of the original primary. The
products of binary mass transfer cover a larger portion of the colour-magnitude
diagram than collision products for two reasons: there are more possible
configurations which produce blue stragglers, and there are differing
contributions to the blended light of the system. The effects of rotation may
be substantial in both collision and merger products, and could result in
significant mixing unless angular momentum is lost shortly after the formation
event. Surface abundances may provide ways to distinguish between the formation
mechanisms, but care must be taking to model the various mixing mechanisms
properly before drawing strong conclusions. Avenues for future work are
outlined.Comment: Chapter 12, in Ecology of Blue Straggler Stars, H.M.J. Boffin, G.
Carraro & G. Beccari (Eds), Astrophysics and Space Science Library, Springe
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