2017MNRAS.466..320H

In this paper, we present an analysis of the properties of blue straggler (BS) populations based on MOCCA simulations covering a range of initial globular cluster conditions. We broadly separate the BSs created in our simulations into two distinct types corresponding to their formation mechanism, namely evolutionary BSs formed from binary evolution and dynamical BSs formed from collisions or mergers induced by direct dynamical interactions between stars and binaries. We find that the dominant type of BS strongly depends on the initial semi-major axis distribution. With mostly compact binaries, the number of evolutionary BSs dominates. Conversely, with mostly wide binaries, dynamical BSs dominate. Higher cluster concentrations increase the contribution from dynamical BSs without affecting the numbers of evolutionary BSs, which are thus mostly descended from primordial binaries. We further consider the ratio between the number of BSs in binaries and as single stars (R_B/S). Models that prefer compact and wide binaries begin with, respectively, high and low values of the ratio R_B/S before converging to a nearly universal value ∼ 0.4. Finally, the initial eccentricity distribution has little to no influence on BS formation.