2009/10/25 by J. M. Diederik Kruijssen, Kruijssen, J. M. Diederik, Steffen Mieske +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #FOS: Physical sciences #Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) #astro-ph.GA #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0910.4773
4 pages, 2 figures. To appear in the proceedings of "Galaxy Wars: Stellar Populations and Star Formation in Interacting Galaxies" (Tennessee, July 2009)
arxiv created 2009/10/25 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
The observed mass-to-light (M/L) ratios of globular clusters (GCs) are on average ~20% lower than expected from Simple Stellar Population (SSP) models, which only account for the effects of stellar evolution. We study the M/L ratio evolution of a sample of 24 Galactic GCs using parameterised cluster models. The dynamical evolution of GCs is included by accounting for their dissolution and by using a detailed description of the evolution of the stellar mass function. The ejection of low-mass stars leads to a decrease of M/L, which is found to explain the discrepancy between the observations and SSP models.