Analysis of the presence of mass segregation in NGC 2516

Abstract

We analyze the phenomenon of mass segregation on the open cluster NGC 2516, where stars with the largest mass values are expectedly distributed on average closer to the center of the cluster. For this, we apply two methods that allow us to detect and quantify this phenomenon. The cluster is previously processed with our pyUPMASK member estimation algorithm, in order to remove contaminating field stars. This results in a clean and complete set of member stars, up to G=18 mag. We then use our ASteCA package to estimate the individual masses of the member stars and their probability of being a binary system. The two methods applied indicate a slight mass segregation for the five most massive stars. The binary systems are found to be distributed outward on average compared to the individual stars. We analyze these results in the context of stellar cluster dynamics.