Astron. Astrophys. 362, 557-562 (2000)

The mass function of NGC 288

A. Pasquali ¹, M.S. Brigas ^1,2 and G. De Marchi  <sup>*  1,3

1</sup> ESO/ST-ECF, Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany
² Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari, Strada 54, Poggio dei Pini, 09012 Capoterra, Cagliari, Italy
³ STScI, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA

Received 28 April 2000 / Accepted 31 August 2000

Abstract

We present NICMOS NIC3 observations of the Galactic globular cluster NGC 288, taken South - East at 2.4 times the cluster's half-light radius in the J and H bands. We have detected the cluster main sequence down to and . The corresponding luminosity function covers the range and peaks at . The theoretical tracks of Baraffe et al. (1997) at give a mass function which is best fitted by a log-normal distribution with characteristic mass of   and a standard deviation . This result is fully consistent with the global mass function derived by Paresce & De Marchi (2000) for a sample of 12 globular clusters with very different dynamical histories, thus confirming that near the cluster's half-light radius the mass function at appears "undistorted" by evaporation or tidal interactions with the Galaxy and should then reflect the initial mass function.

Key words: stars: luminosity function, mass function Galaxy: globular clusters: individual: NGC 288

* On assignment from the Astrophysics Division, Space Science Department of ESA

Send offprint requests to: A. Pasquali (Anna.Pasquali@eso.org)

© European Southern Observatory (ESO) 2000

Online publication: October 24, 2000

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