Engineering topics

Ferraro, Francesco R.

Publications and source records attributed to Ferraro, Francesco R..

4 records

DOE OSTI2017

A Complete Census of Hα Emitters in NGC 6397

We used a data set of archival Hubble Space Telescope images obtained through the F555W, F814W, and F656N filters to perform a complete search for objects showing Hα emission in the globular cluster NGC 6397. As a photometric diagnostic, we used the (V−Hα){sub 0} color excess in the (V−Hα){sub 0}–(V−I){sub 0} color–color diagram. In the analyzed field of view, we identified 53 Hα emitters. In particular, we confirmed the optical counterpart to 20 X-ray sources (7 cataclysmic variables, 2 millisecond pulsars and 11 active binaries) and identified 33 previously unknown sources, thus significantly enlarging the population of known active binaries in this cluster. We report the main characteristics for each class of objects. Photometric estimates of the equivalent width of the Hα emission line were derived from the (V−Hα){sub 0}-excess and, for the first time, compared to the spectroscopic measurements obtained from the analysis of MUSE spectra. The very good agreement between the spectroscopic and photometric measures fully confirmed the reliability of the proposed approach to measure the Hα emission. The search demonstrated the efficiency of this novel approach to pinpoint and measure Hα-emitters, thus offering a powerful tool to conduct a complete census of objects with formations and evolutions that can be strongly affected by dynamical interactions in star clusters.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2016

INVESTIGATING THE MASS SEGREGATION PROCESS IN GLOBULAR CLUSTERS WITH BLUE STRAGGLER STARS: THE IMPACT OF DARK REMNANTS

We present the results of a set of N -body simulations aimed at exploring how the process of mass segregation (as traced by the spatial distribution of blue straggler stars, BSSs) is affected by the presence of a population of heavy dark remnants (as neutron stars and black holes (BHs)). To this end, clusters characterized by different initial concentrations and different fractions of dark remnants have been modeled. We find that an increasing fraction of stellar-mass BHs significantly delay the mass segregation of BSSs and the visible stellar component. In order to trace the evolution of BSS segregation, we introduce a new parameter ( A {sup +}), which can be easily measured when the cumulative radial distribution of these stars and a reference population are available. Our simulations show that A {sup +} might also be used as an approximate indicator of the time remaining to the core collapse of the visible component.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2016

NGC 6362: THE LEAST MASSIVE GLOBULAR CLUSTER WITH CHEMICALLY DISTINCT MULTIPLE POPULATIONS

We present the first measure of Fe and Na abundances in NGC 6362, a low-mass globular cluster (GC) where first- and second-generation stars are fully spatially mixed. A total of 160 member stars (along the red giant branch (RGB) and the red horizontal branch (RHB)) were observed with the multi-object spectrograph FLAMES at the Very Large Telescope. We find that the cluster has an iron abundance of [Fe/H] = −1.09 ± 0.01 dex, without evidence of intrinsic dispersion. On the other hand, the [Na/Fe] distribution turns out to be intrinsically broad and bimodal. The Na-poor and Na-rich stars populate, respectively, the bluest and the reddest RGBs detected in the color–magnitude diagrams including the U filter. The RGB is composed of a mixture of first- and second-generation stars in a similar proportion, while almost all the RHB stars belong to the first cluster generation. To date, NGC 6362 is the least massive GC where both the photometric and spectroscopic signatures of multiple populations have been detected.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2014

Dynamical friction in multi-component evolving globular clusters

We use the Chandrasekhar formalism and direct N-body simulations to study the effect of dynamical friction on a test object only slightly more massive than the field stars, orbiting a spherically symmetric background of particles with a mass spectrum. The main goal is to verify whether the dynamical friction time (t {sub DF}) develops a non-monotonic radial dependence that could explain the bimodality of the blue straggler radial distributions observed in globular clusters. In these systems, in fact, relaxation effects lead to a mass and velocity radial segregation of the different mass components, so that mass-spectrum effects on t {sub DF} are expected to be dependent on radius. We find that in spite of the presence of different masses, t {sub DF} is always a monotonic function of radius, at all evolutionary times and independently of the initial concentration of the simulated cluster. This is because the radial dependence of t {sub DF} is largely dominated by the total mass density profile of the background stars (which is monotonically decreasing with radius). Hence, a progressive temporal erosion of the blue straggler star (BSS) population at larger and larger distances from the cluster center remains the simplest and the most likely explanation of the shape of the observed BSS radial distributions, as suggested in previous works. We also confirm the theoretical expectation that approximating a multi-mass globular cluster as made of (averaged) equal-mass stars can lead to significant overestimations of t {sub DF} within the half-mass radius.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗