# Blue straggler stars beyond the Milky Way. IV. Radial distributions and dynamical implications

## TL;DR

This study investigates whether blue straggler stars can serve as indicators of dynamical states in younger Large Magellanic Cloud clusters, extending their use beyond Galactic globular clusters.

## Contribution

It demonstrates that blue straggler stars correlate with dynamical age in LMC clusters, similar to Galactic globular clusters, suggesting their broader applicability as dynamical clocks.

## Key findings

- Sample clusters align with the empirical correlation for Galactic globular clusters.
- Blue straggler stars can potentially measure dynamical states in younger clusters.
- Further studies needed for older Magellanic Cloud clusters.

## Abstract

Blue straggler stars have been proposeed as powerful indicators to measure the dynamical state of Galactic globular clusters. Here we examine for the first time if this framework of blue straggler stars as dynamical clocks, which was specifically developed for Galactic globular clusters, may also hold for younger globular clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Using Hubble Space Telescope observations, we study seven Large Magellanic Cloud star clusters with ages between ~700 Myr and 7 Gyr. We confirm that our sample clusters are consistent with the empirical correlation previously derived for Galactic globular clusters, within a modest tolerance. We suggest that to further examine if blue straggler stars can measure the dynamical state of their host clusters over an extended range of dynamical ages, more studies of dynamically older Magellanic Cloud clusters are required. We discuss the physical implications of our results in terms of their central, dimensionless King potential, as well as the initial retention fraction of black holes.