Mass Segregation as a New Indicator of Binary, IMBH, and Stellar-mass Black Hole Systems in Globular Clusters

Abstract This study presents the mass segregation of 35 Galactic globular clusters (GCs) through the radial profile of the mean mass of main-sequence stars. Most of them are found to be mass segregated due to two-body relaxation effects. The GCs with a larger core to half-mass–radius ratio tend to be less mass segregated. Recent simulations show that energy sources can quench mass segregation in relaxed GCs. Combining mass segregation and core binary fractions (f c ), we find a moderate anticorrelation between them when f c is below 0.15. Four GCs that have a small amount of mass segregation are selected as possible intermediate-mass black hole holders. However, none of them are strong candidates considering their half-mass relaxation times.