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Exotic populations in globular clusters: blue stragglers as tracers of the internal dynamical evolution of stellar systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2016

Francesco R. Ferraro
Francesco R. Ferraro*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Bologna, Viale Berti Pichat 6/2, 40127- Bologna, Italy email: francesco.ferraro3@unibo.it
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Abstract

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In this paper I present an overview of the main observational properties of a special class of exotic objects (the so-called Blue Straggler Stars, BSSs) in Galactic Globular Clusters (GCs). The BSS specific frequency and their radial distribution are discussed in the framework of using this stellar population as probe of GC internal dynamics. In particular, the shape of the BSS radial distribution has been found to be a powerful tracer of the dynamical evolution of stellar systems, thus allowing the definition of an empirical “clock”able to measure the dynamical age of stellar aggregates from pure observational properties.

Keywords

globular clustersblue stragglersdynamics

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