Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2010-04-23
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
9 pages, 3 figures. Accepted by MNRAS
Scientific paper
Globular clusters were thought to be simple stellar populations, but recent photometric and spectroscopic evidence suggests that the clusters' early formation history was more complicated. In particular, clusters show star-to-star abundance variations, and multiple sequences in their colour-magnitude diagrams. These effects seem to be restricted to globular clusters, and are not found in open clusters or the field. In this paper, we combine the two competing models for these multiple populations and include a consideration of the effects of stellar collisions. Collisions are one of the few phenomena which occur solely in dense stellar environments like (proto-)globular clusters. We find that runaway collisions between massive stars can produce material which has abundances comparable to the observed second generations, but that very little total mass is produced by this channel. We then add the contributions of rapidly-rotating massive stars (under the assumption that massive stars are spun up by collisions and interactions), and the contribution of asymptotic giant branch stars. We find that collisions can help produce the extreme abundances which are seen in some clusters. However, the total amount of material produced in these generations is still too small (by at least a factor of 10) to match the observations. We conclude with a discussion of the additional effects which probably need to be considered to solve this particular problem.
Glebbeek Evert
Sills Alison
No associations
LandOfFree
Multiple Populations in Globular Clusters: The Possible Contributions of Stellar Collisions does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Multiple Populations in Globular Clusters: The Possible Contributions of Stellar Collisions, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Multiple Populations in Globular Clusters: The Possible Contributions of Stellar Collisions will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-694936