Probing Mass Segregation in NGC 6397

Abstract

In this study, we present a detailed study of mass segregation in the globular clister NGC 6397. First, we carry out a photometric analysis of projected ESO-VLT data (between 1 and 10 arcmin from the cluster centre), presenting the luminosity function corrected by completeness. The luminosity function shows a higher density of bright stars near the central region of the data, with respect to the outer region. We calculate a deprojected model (covering the whole cluster) estimating a total number of stars of 193000 +- 19000. The shapes of the surface brightness and density-number profiles versus the radial coordinate r (instead of the projected coordinate R) lead to a decreasing luminosity for an average star, and thus of mass, up to 1 arcmin, quantifying the mass segregation. The deprojected model does not show evidence of mass segregation outside this region.

References in corpus (5)

• The Dartmouth Stellar Evolution Database
• Surface Brightness Profiles of Galactic Globular Clusters from Hubble Space Telescope Images
• Deep ACS Imaging in the Globular Cluster NGC 6397: The Cluster Color Magnitude Diagram and Luminosity Function
• Identification of Faint Chandra X-ray Sources in the Core-Collapsed Globular Cluster NGC 6397: Evidence for a Bimodal Cataclysmic Variable Population
• Deep ACS Imaging in the Globular Cluster NGC6397: Dynamical Models

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Measuring Consistent Masses for 25 Milky Way Globular Clusters
• Testing multi-mass dynamical models of star clusters with real data: mass segregation in three Galactic globular clusters
• Low mass variable stars in the globular cluster NGC 6397