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Spera, M, Mapelli, M and Jeffries, RD (2016) Do open star clusters evolve towards energy equipartition? Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 460 (1). 317 - 328. ISSN 1365-2966
R Jeffries - Do open star clusters evolve towards energy equipartition.pdf - Published Version
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Abstract
We investigate whether open clusters (OCs) tend to energy equipartition, by means of direct N-body simulations with a broken power-law mass function. We find that the simulated OCs become strongly mass segregated, but the local velocity dispersion does not depend on the stellar mass for most of the mass range: the curve of the velocity dispersion as a function of mass is nearly flat even after several half-mass relaxation times, regardless of the adopted stellar evolution recipes and Galactic tidal field model. This result holds both if we start from virialized King models and if we use clumpy sub-virial initial conditions. The velocity dispersion of the most massive stars and stellar remnants tends to be higher than the velocity dispersion of the lighter stars. This trend is particularly evident in simulations without stellar evolution. We interpret this result as a consequence of the strong mass segregation, which leads to Spitzer's instability. Stellar winds delay the onset of the instability. Our simulations strongly support the result that OCs do not attain equipartition, for a wide range of initial conditions.
Item Type: | Article |
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Additional Information: | This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2016 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All Rights Reserved |
Uncontrolled Keywords: | black hole physics; methods: numerical; stars: kinematics and dynamics; open clusters and associations: general |
Subjects: | Q Science > QB Astronomy |
Divisions: | Faculty of Natural Sciences > School of Physical and Geographical Sciences |
Related URLs: | |
Depositing User: | Symplectic |
Date Deposited: | 07 Nov 2016 11:04 |
Last Modified: | 19 Sep 2017 15:11 |
URI: | https://eprints.keele.ac.uk/id/eprint/2435 |