The presence of blue stragglers pose challenges to standard stellar evolution theory, in the sense that explaining their presence demands a complex interplay between stellar evolution and cluster dynamics. In the meantime, mass transfer in binary systems and stellar collisions are widely studied as a blue straggler formation channel. We explore properties of the Galactic open clusters where blue stragglers are found, in attempting to estimate the relative importance of these two favored processes, by comparing them with those resulting from open clusters in which blue stragglers are absent as of now. Unlike previous studies which require a sophisticated process in understanding the implication of the results, this approach is straightforward and has resulted in a supplementary supporting evidence for the current view on the blue straggler formation mechanism. Our main findings are as follows: (1) Open clusters in which blue stragglers are present have a broader distribution with respect to the Z-axis pointing towards the North Galactic Pole than those in which blue stragglers are absent. The probability that two distributions with respect to the Z-axis are drawn from the same distribution is 0.2%. (2) Average values of log10(t) of the clusters with blue stragglers and those without blue stragglers are 8.58 ± 0.232 and 7.52 ± 0.285, respectively. (3) The clusters with blue stragglers tend to be relatively redder than the others, and are distributed broader in colors. (4) The clusters with blue stragglers are likely brighter than those without blue stragglers. (5) Finally, blue stragglers seem to form in condensed clusters rather than simply dense clusters. Hence, we conclude that mass transfer in binaries seems to be a relatively important physical mechanism of the generation of blue stragglers in open clusters, provided they are sufficiently old.

Cores of globular clusters are an ideal place for close encounters between stars. The outcome of tidal capture can be stellar mergers, close binaries between normal stars (W UMa type), cataclysmic variables composed of white dwarf and normal star pairs, or low-mass X-ray binaries consisting of a neutron star and a normal star pairs. Stellar mergers can be the origin of blue stragglers in dense globular clusters although they are hard to observe. Low mass X-ray binaries would eventually become binary pulsars with short pulse periods after the neutron stars accrete sufficient amount of matter from the companion. However, large number of recently discovered, isolated millisecond pulsars (as opposed to binary pulsars) in globular clusters may imply that they do not have to gain angular speeds during the X-ray binary phase. We propose that these isolated millisecond pulsars may have formed through the disruptive encounters, which lead to the formation of accretion disk without Roche lobe filling companion, between a neutron star and a main-sequence star. Based on recently developed multicomponent models for the dynamical evolution of globular clusters, we compute the expected numbers of various systems formed by tidal capture as a function of time.

UBV photoelectric observations were carried out for bright stars in M67 and the masses of clump stars and giant stars were derived in M67 and the other old open clusters, NGC 188, NGC 2420, NGC 2506 and IC 4651. The mean mass of clump stars in the five clusters ranges m = 0.5 ∼ 1.0 m ⊙ , and its ratio to the mean mass of giant stars is about 0.83. The number ratio of blue stragglers to the stars brighter than the turn-off of main sequence increases with cluster age whereas that of clump stars decreases with age. These results imply that the clump stars and blue stragglers are at the phase of horizontal branch evolution.