Parker, R.J., Goodwin, S.P., Wright, N.J. et al. (2 more authors) (2016) Mass segregation in star clusters is not energy equipartition. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters. ISSN 1745-3933
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.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | astro-ph.GA; astro-ph.GA |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FACILITIES COUNCIL ST/J001589/1 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FACILITIES COUNCIL ST/M001350/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 18 Apr 2016 10:25 |
Last Modified: | 28 Mar 2018 11:46 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slw061 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/mnrasl/slw061 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:98622 |