Global Globular Cluster Mass Function Correlations

Paust, Nathaniel; Reid, I. N.; Aparicio, A.; King, I.; Piotto, G.
Bibliographical reference

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #442.14; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.321

Advertised on:
1
2009
Number of authors
5
IAC number of authors
1
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
We present new global mass functions for a large number of clusters from the ACS Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters and find that the majority of the mass functions follow power-law behavior from the main sequence turnoff (at approximately 0.7 solar masses) down to our completeness limit (at approximately 0.3 solar masses). Comparing the mass function slopes with parameters from the Harris catalog of globular clusters, significant correlations between the mass function slope and several other cluster parameters. These correlations suggest that a majority of the variation in the mass function slope is due to cluster evolution through interactions with the Galaxy. This opens the door to the possibility of a universal initial mass function for the clusters studied, although significant dynamical modeling is required to confirm this conclusion.