DISC-SHOCKING AND THE MASS FUNCTION OF GALACTIC GLOBULAR-CLUSTERS

A new homogeneous analysis of the available data confirms that the slope of the stellar mass function for Galactic globular clusters seems to depend on the position relative to the potential of the Galaxy. It is shown that the observed dependence can be accounted for by developing the idea that all globular clusters are born with identical mass functions which then evolve through rapid interactions with the Galactic disc (disc-shocking). The limits of our semi-analytical approach based on the impulse approximation are tested by N-body simulations.