Work

Blue Lurkers Candidates across Open Clusters from UV excess and stellar rotation

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Blue lurkers (BLs) are a recently identified class of exotic stars, first characterized in the open cluster M67 as lower-mass counterparts of blue straggler stars, photometrically hidden along the main sequence of their host clusters. They have so far been recognized either through rapid rotation (Leiner et al. 2019) or ultraviolet excess indicative of recent mass transfer (Dattatrey et al., 2023; Jadhav et al., 2024). However, the number of confirmed BLs remains small, limiting our understanding of their formation pathways. Expanding the sample — both in size and across clusters of different ages and masses — is essential to constrain their evolutionary origins. In this work, we search for BL candidates in a large set of open clusters, identifying systems based on rotational and photometric peculiarities. We compare the efficiency of these methods and present new candidate BLs that, if followed up with detailed study and modeling, can serve as benchmarks for understanding mass transfer in low-mass binaries.

Source: Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17720788

Authors: Reggiani, Elisabetta, Pancino, Elena

Institutions: University of Florence, National Institute for Astrophysics, Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory

Language: English

Topic: Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies

Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funder: European Commission

Award: G6285680282