MOCCA code for star cluster simulations - VI. Bimodal spatial distribution of blue stragglers

The paper presents an analysis of formation mechanism and properties of spatial distributions of blue stragglers in evolving globular clusters, based on numerical simulations done with the MOCCA code. First, there are presented N-body and MOCCA simulations which try to reproduce the simulations presented by Ferraro et al. (2012). Then, we show the agreement between Nbody and the MOCCA code. Finally,we discuss the formation process of the bimodal distribution. We report that we could not reproduce simulations from Ferraro et al. (2012). Moreover, we show that the so-called bimodal spatial distribution of blue stragglers is a very transient feature. It is formed for one snapshot in time and it can easily vanish in the next one. Moreover, we show that the radius of avoidance proposed by Ferraro et al. (2012) goes out of sync with the apparent minimum of the bimodal distribution after about two half-mass relaxation times (without finding out what is the reason for that). This finding creates a real challenge for the dynamical clock, which uses this radius to determine the dynamical age of globular clusters. Additionally, the paper discusses a few important problems concerning the apparent visibilities of the bimodal distributions, which have to be taken into account while studying the spatial distributions of blue stragglers. © 2017 The Authors.