2012/07/31 by Sourav Chatterjee, Stefan Umbreit, John M. Fregeau +1 · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph.GA
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/sts464
42 pages, 12 figures, 1 table, submitted to MNRAS
arxiv created 2012/11/20 · openalex publication_date 2013/01/16 · arxiv updated 2015/06/05 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study the dynamical evolution of globular clusters using our Hénon-type Monte Carlo code for stellar dynamics including all relevant physics such as two-body relaxation, single and binary stellar evolution, Galactic tidal stripping, and strong interactions such as physical collisions and binary mediated scattering. We compute a large database of several hundred models starting from broad ranges of initial conditions guided by observations of young and massive star clusters. We show that these initial conditions very naturally lead to present day clusters with properties including the central density, core radius, half-light radius, half-mass relaxation time, and cluster mass, that match well with those of the old Galactic globular clusters. In particular, we can naturally reproduce the bimodal distribution in observed core radii separating the "core-collapsed" vs the "non core-collapsed" clusters. We see that the core-collapsed clusters are those that have reached or are about to reach the equilibrium "binary burning" phase. The non core-collapsed clusters are still undergoing gravo-thermal contraction.