Exploring the Mass Segregation Effect of X-ray Sources in Globular Clusters. III. Signs of Binary Disruption in M28
Abstract
Using archival Chandra observations with a total effective exposure of 323 ks, we derive an updated catalog of point sources in the bulge globular cluster M28. The catalog contains 502 X-ray sources within an area of 475\, arcmin2, and more than 90\% of these sources are first detected in this cluster. We find significant dips in the radial distribution profiles of X-ray sources in M28, with the projected distance and width of the distribution dip for bright (LX 4.5× 1030 \ erg\ \,s-1) X-ray sources are larger than the faint (LX 4.5× 1030 \ erg\ \,s-1) sources. The "generalized King model" fitting give a slightly larger average mass for the bright sources (1.300.15\,M) than the faint sources (1.090.14\,M), which support a universal mass segregation delay between heavy objects in GCs. Compared with 47 Tuc and Terzan 5, we show that the dynamical age of M28 is comparable to Terzan 5 and much smaller than 47 Tuc, but it is evolving more fast (i.e., with smaller two-body relaxation timescale) than 47 Tuc. These features may suggest an acceleration effect of cluster dynamical evolution by tidal shock in M28. Besides, we find an abnormal deficiency of X-ray sources in the central region (R 1.5 ~arcmin) of M28 than its outskirts, which indicate that M28 may have suffered an early phase of primordial binary disruption within its central region, and mass segregation effect will erase such a phenomenon as cluster evolve to older dynamical age.