Observations and Simulations of the Blue Straggler Star Radial Distribution: Clues on the Formation Mechanisms

摘要

By means of high-resolution and wide-field observations in the UV and optical bands we have derived the radial distribution of the Blue Stragglers Star (BSS) population in a number of galactic globular clusters. Monte-Carlo dynamical simulations have then been used to interpret the observed radial distributions in terms of percentage of collisional and mass-transfer BSS populating each cluster. I will present the main results thus obtained and an overall cluster-tocluster comparison for the whole sample collected so far, mainly focusing on the clues that such an approach provides about the BSS formation mechanisms .