Abstract Details

Name: Khushboo Kunwar Rao
Affiliation: Birla Institute of Technology & Science Pilani
Conference ID: ASI2020_64
Title : Blue Straggler Stars in Open Clusters
Authors and Co-Authors : Author: Khushboo Kunwar Rao Co-Author: Kaushar Vaidya
Abstract Type : Poster
Abstract Category : Stars, ISM and Galaxy
Abstract : Blue straggler stars are a subset of cluster members which are located along the extension of the main sequence on the colour-magnitude diagram and are brighter and bluer than the main sequence turn off stars. Therefore, blue straggler stars have been an exciting class of stars since 1953 when Sandage first discovered them in the globular cluster M3. Being the most massive objects, blue stragglers are crucial to study the interplay between the cluster dynamics and stellar evolution. With the use of proper motions and parallax information from Gaia DR2 data, we identify blue straggler stars in selected open clusters and crosscheck with the existing blue stragglers in the literature. The open clusters that we study span a vast range in age (~7 Gyr to 9.78 Gyr), and distance (~0.3 kpc to 6.4 kpc).