GlobULeS. IV. UVIT/AstroSat Detection of Extremely Low Mass White Dwarf Companions to Blue Straggler Stars in NGC 362

Abstract

We report the discovery of extremely low mass white dwarfs (ELM WDs) as a companion of blue straggler stars (BSSs) in the Galactic globular cluster NGC 362 using images from AstroSat's Ultra Violet Imaging Telescope (UVIT). Spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for 26 far-UV (FUV) bright member BSSs are created using data from the UVIT, the UltraViolet and Optical Telescope (UVOT), Gaia EDR3, and the 2.2 m ESO/MPI telescope. A single SED is fitted to 14 BSSs, whereas double-SED fits revealed ELM WDs as binary companions in 12 of the 26 BSSs studied. The effective temperature, radius, luminosity, and mass of the 12 ELM WDs are found to have a range of T eff = 9750−18,000 K, R = 0.1−0.4 R ⊙, L = 0.4−3.3 L ⊙, and M = 0.16−0.20 M ⊙. These suggest that 12 BSSs are post-mass-transfer systems formed through the case A/B mass transfer pathway. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first finding of ELM WDs as companions to BSSs in globular clusters. This cluster is known to have a binary BSS sequence, and the 12 binary and 14 single BSSs (as classified by the SEDs) follow the mass transfer and collisional sequence of BSSs in the color–magnitude diagram. The cooling ages of nine of the ELM WDs are found to be younger than 500 Myr. Though the binary BSSs may have formed during the core collapse (∼200 Myr) or as part of the dynamical evolution of the cluster, they provide new insights on the dynamics of this cluster.