WIYN Open Cluster Study XXXII: Stellar Radial Velocities in the Old Open Cluster NGC 188

TL;DR

This study presents a 11-35 year radial velocity survey of the old open cluster NGC 188, revealing binary populations, mass segregation, and precise cluster dynamics, including a virial mass estimate.

Contribution

The paper provides the first extensive radial velocity data set for NGC 188, including binary detection and spatial distribution analysis, extending previous work with long-term observations.

Findings

124 velocity-variable cluster members identified

Evidence of mass segregation among binaries

Bimodal distribution of blue stragglers

Abstract

(Abridged) We present the results of our ongoing radial-velocity (RV) survey of the old (7 Gyr) open cluster NGC 188. Our WIYN 3.5m data set spans a time baseline of 11 years, a magnitude range of 12<=V<=16.5 (1.18-0.94 MSun), and a 1 deg. diameter region on the sky. With the addition of a Dominion Astrophysical Observatory (DAO) data set we extend our bright limit to V = 10.8 and, for some stars, extend our time baseline to 35 years. Our magnitude limits include solar-mass main-sequence stars, subgiants, giants, and blue stragglers (BSs), and our spatial coverage extends radially to 17 pc (~13 core radii). For the WIYN data we find a measurement precision of 0.4 km/s for narrow-lined stars. We have measured RVs for 1046 stars in the direction of NGC 188, finding 473 to be likely cluster members. We detect 124 velocity-variable cluster members, all of which are likely to be dynamically hard-binary stars. Using our single member stars, we find an average cluster RV of -42.36 +/- 0.04 km/s. We use our precise RV and proper-motion membership data to greatly reduce field-star contamination in our cleaned color-magnitude diagram, from which we identify six stars of note that lie far from a standard single-star isochrone. We find the binaries to be centrally concentrated, providing evidence for the presence of mass segregation in NGC 188. We observe the BSs to populate a bimodal spatial distribution that is not centrally concentrated, suggesting that we may be observing two populations of BSs in NGC 188, including a centrally concentrated distribution as well as a halo population. Finally, we find NGC 188 to have a global RV dispersion of 0.64 +/- 0.04 km/s. When corrected for unresolved binaries, the NGC 188 RV dispersion has a nearly isothermal radial distribution. We use this mean-corrected velocity dispersion to derive a virial mass of 2300 +/- 460 MSun.