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Evidence Against Primordial Mass Segregation in Young Open Clusters: A Bayesian Multiscale Analysis of 3881 Gaia DR3 Clusters

  • Authors: Su Zhang

Su Zhang 2026 The Astronomical Journal 171 .

  • Provider: AAS Journals

Caption: Figure 2.

Evolution of spatial mass-segregation metrics visualized using KDE plots. The metrics Q1, T1, and H1 correspond to the mass fractions within the inner 25%, 33%, and 50% of the cluster. The dashed red lines indicate the expected values for a spatially random distribution. Note that the “Very Young” population (blue) is symmetrically distributed around the random baseline, indicating that the spread is due to stochastic noise rather than physical segregation. In contrast, the “Old” population (red) exhibits a systematic shift to the right, indicating genuine dynamical segregation.

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