Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T15:07:05.306Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Dynamical Origin for Early Mass Segregation in Young Star Clusters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2007

Steve McMillan ,
Enrico Vesperini  and
Simon Portegies Zwart
Steve McMillan
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA email: steve@physics.drexel.edu, vesperin@physics.drexel.edu
Enrico Vesperini
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA email: steve@physics.drexel.edu, vesperin@physics.drexel.edu
Simon Portegies Zwart
Affiliation:
Astronomical Institute ‘Anton Pannekoek’ and Section Computational Science, University of Amsterdam, Kruislaan 403, 1098SJ Amsterdam, the Netherlands email: spz@science.uva.nl
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Some young star clusters show a degree of mass segregation that is inconsistent with the effects of standard two-body relaxation from an initially unsegregated system without substructure, in virial equilibrium, and it is unclear whether current cluster formation models can account for this degree of initial segregation in clusters of significant mass. We show that mergers of small clumps that are either initially mass segregated, or in which mass segregation can be produced by two-body relaxation before they merge, generically lead to larger systems which inherit the progenitor clumps' segregation. We conclude that clusters formed in this way are naturally mass segregated, accounting for the anomalous observations and suggesting that this process of prompt mass segregation due to initial clumping should be taken into account in models of cluster formation and dynamics.

Keywords

stellar dynamicsmethods: n-body simulationsstars: formationglobular clusters: generalopen clusters and associations: general
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 3 , Symposium S246: Dynamical Evolution of Dense Stellar Systems , September 2007 , pp. 41 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2008

References

Bonnell, I. A. & Davies, M. B 1998, MNRAS, 295, 691CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonnell, I. A., Clarke, C. J., Bate, M. R., & Pringle, J. E. 2001, MNRAS, 324, 573CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonnell, I. A., Bate, M. R., & Vine, S. 2003, MNRAS, 343, 413CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonnell, I. A. & Bate, M. R. 2006, MNRAS, 370, 488CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Grijs, R., Gilmore, G. F., Johnson, R. A., & Mackey, A. D. 2002, MNRAS, 331, 245CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elmegreen, B. & Krakowski, A. 2001, ApJ, 562, 433CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elmegreen, B. 2006, astro-ph/0605519Google Scholar
Fischer, P., Pryor, C., Murray, S., Mateo, M., & Richtler, T. 1998, AJ, 331, 592CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Funato, Y., Makino, J. & Ebisuzaki, T. 1992, PASJ, 44, 291Google Scholar
Gouliermis, D., Keller, S. C., Kontizas, M., Kontizas, E., & Bellas-Velidis, I. 2004, A&A, 416, 137Google Scholar
Heggie, D. C. & Mathieu, R. D. 1986, in The Use of Supercomputers in Stellar Dynamics (Hut, P. and McMillan, S., eds.; Springer-Verlag, New York)Google Scholar
Hillenbrand, L. A. 1997, AJ, 113, 1733CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hillenbrand, L. A. & Hartmann, L. E. 1998, ApJ, 331, 540.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klessen, R., 2001, ApJ, 556, 837CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroupa, P., Tout, C. A., & Gilmore, G. 1993, MNRAS, 262, 545CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krumholz, M. R., Klein, R. I., & McKee, C. F. 2005, Nature, 438, 332CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Makino, J., Fukushige, T., Koga, M., & Namura, K. 2003, PASJ, 55, 1163CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMillan, S. L. W., Vesperini, E., & Portegies Zwart, S. F. 2007, ApJ, 655, 45CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pasquali, A., De Marchi, G., Pulone, L., & Brigas, M. S. 2004, A&A, 428, 469Google Scholar
Portegies Zwart, S. F., McMillan, S. L. W., Hut, P., & Makino, J. 2001, MNRAS, 321, 199CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sirianni, M., Nota, A., De Marchi, G., Leitherer, C., & Clampin, M. 2002, ApJ, 579, 275CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sosin, C., & King, I. R. 1997, AJ, 113, 1328CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanke, T., Smith, M. D., Gredel, R., & Khanzadyan, T. 2006, A&A, 447, 609Google Scholar
Stolte, A., Brandner, W., Brandl, B., & Zinnecker, H. 2006, AJ, 132, 253CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Albada, T. S. 1982, MNRAS, 201, 939CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vesperini, E., McMillan, S. L. W., & Portegies Zwart, S. F., 2008, in preparationGoogle Scholar