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Mass segregation in star clusters is not energy equipartition

Wright

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Abstract

Mass segregation in star clusters is often thought to indicate the onset of energy equipartition, where the most massive stars impart kinetic energy to the lower-mass stars and brown dwarfs/free floating planets. The predicted net result of this is that the centrally concentrated massive stars should have significantly lower velocities than fast-moving low-mass objects on the periphery of the cluster. We search for energy equipartition in initially spatially and kinematically substructured N-body simulations of star clusters with N = 1500 stars, evolved for 100 Myr. In clusters that show significant mass segregation we find no differences in the proper motions or radial velocities as a function of mass. The kinetic energies of all stars decrease as the clusters relax, but the kinetic energies of the most massive stars do not decrease faster than those of lower-mass stars. These results suggest that dynamical mass segregation -- which is observed in many star clusters -- is not a signature of energy equipartition from two-body relaxation.

Acceptance Date Mar 31, 2016
Publication Date Jun 11, 2016
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Print ISSN 0035-8711
Publisher Oxford University Press
Pages 119-123
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slw061
Keywords starts, astrophysics
Publisher URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slw061

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