SCYON Abstract

Received on November 27 2001

Mass Segregation in Globular Clusters

Authors	J. M. Fregeau ¹, K. J. Joshi ², S. F. Portegies Zwart ^3,4, F. A. Rasio ⁵
Affiliation	¹Department of Physics, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139 ²Present address: 75 Peterborough St #313, Boston, MA 02215 ³Astronomical Institute `Anton Pannekoek', University of Amsterdam, Netherlands ⁴Hubble Fellow ⁵Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, 2145 Sheridan Rd, Evanston, IL 60208
Submitted to	Astrophysical Journal
Contact	fregeau@mit.edu
URL	http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0111057
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Abstract

We present the results of a new study of mass segregation in two-component star clusters, based on a large number of numerical N-body simulations using our recently developed dynamical Monte Carlo code. Specifically, we follow the dynamical evolution of clusters containing stars with individual masses m₁ as well as a tracer population of objects with individual masses m₂. We consider both light tracers (mu ~ m₂/m₁ < 1) and heavy tracers (mu > 1), and a variety of King model initial conditions. In all of our simulations we use a realistically large number of stars for globular clusters, N=10⁵, but we ignore the effects of binaries and stellar evolution. For heavy tracers, which could represent stellar remnants such as neutron stars or black holes in a globular cluster, we characterize in a variety of ways the tendency for these objects to concentrate in or near the cluster core. In agreement with simple theoretical arguments, we find that the characteristic time for this mass segregation process varies as 1/mu. For models with very light tracers (mu < ~ 10^-2), which could represent free-floating planets or brown dwarfs, we find the expected depletion of light objects in the cluster core, but also sometimes a significant enhancement in the halo. That is, for some initial conditions, the number density of light objects in the cluster halo increases over time, in spite of the higher overall evaporation rate of lighter objects through the tidal boundary. Using these results along with a simplified initial mass function, we estimate the optical depth to gravitational microlensing by planetary mass objects or brown dwarfs in typical globular clusters. For some initial conditions, the optical depth in the halo due to very low-mass objects could be much greater than that of luminous stars. If we apply our results to M22, adopting the normalization provided by the very tentative detection of microlensing events by Sahu et al.~(2001), we find that about 20% of the total mass in M22 is currently in the form of very low-mass objects.