Stellar Populations in Globular Cluster Cores: Evidence for a Peculiar Trend Among Red Giant Branch Stars

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between the mass of a globular cluster core and the sizes of its various stellar populations in a sample of 56 globular clusters. The number of core red giant branch stars is found to scale sub-linearly with core mass at the 3-$\sigma$ confidence level, whereas the relation is linear to within one standard deviation for main-sequence turn-off and sub-giant branch stars. We interpret our results as evidence for a surplus of red giant branch stars in the least massive cluster cores which is not seen for main-sequence turn-off and sub-giant branch stars. We explore various possibilities for the source of this discrepancy, discussing our results primarily in terms of the interplay between the cluster dynamics and stellar evolution.

5 pages, 2 figures, accepted by MNRAS Letters

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• Blue Straggler Stars in Open Clusters using Gaia: Dependence on Cluster Parameters and Possible Formation Pathways
• An Analytic Model for Blue Straggler Formation in Globular Clusters
• On the origins of enigmatic stellar populations in Local Group galactic nuclei
• Dissecting the Colour-Magnitude Diagram: A Homogeneous Catalogue of Stellar Populations in Globular Clusters