Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21530801g&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #308.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.305
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
The old (7 Gyr) open cluster NGC 188 is quickly becoming a benchmark for study of the dynamical impact of a cluster environment on an evolved stellar population. Observations have shown that NGC 188 is home to a rich binary population and a wide variety of intriguing stars, including blue stragglers, sub-subgiants and X-ray sources. Indeed, this abundance of anomalous stars is likely a direct result of the dynamical evolution of the single- and binary-star systems as they have interacted over the lifetime of the cluster. For my thesis, I have conducted an integrated observational and numerical study of NGC 188, investigating the binary population and the anomalous stars in great detail. The observed binary and rotational characteristics of the NGC 188 blue stragglers are some of the most distinguishing properties of open cluster blue stragglers found to date, and I attempt to better understand their origins through a sophisticated N-body model of NGC 188. This landmark N-body simulation is the first whose primordial binary population is directly defined by observations of binaries in a young open cluster: M35 (150 Myr). Remarkably, this M35-based binary population evolves to look like NGC 188 within 7 Gyr. This is the most accurately simulated binary population of any previous N-body open cluster model, demonstrating the importance of detailed observations in guiding N-body simulations. I compare the simulation at 7 Gyr in detail to NGC 188, and discuss a few further methods for bringing N-body open cluster simulations in better agreement with observations. This synergy between observations and simulations will continue to refine the N-body method and reveal further insights into the origins of blue stragglers, the evolution of a binary population, and the dynamical evolution of star clusters.
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