Globular cluster are old populations of stars at the outer edges of the Milky Way. Years ago, they were thought to be simple systems whose stars formed at the same time out of the same material. Today we know that the formation and evolution of globular clusters is very complicated. The specific question we would like to answer is how these clusters have lost stars over their lifetime. Fortunately, we have a simple method to do this: look at the cluster’s luminosity function. Our goal is to determine the luminosity function of several globular clusters and compare them to existing data.
Mentor: Katie Hamren, Graduate Student
Secondary Mentor: Graeme Smith, Faculty, Professor