Infrared JHK photometry is given for all the proposed LMC CH stars in the list of Hartwick & Cowley (43 stars). Their luminosities range up to Mbol ∼ −6 or brighter, making them the most massive carbon stars in the LMC. However, the kinematic discussion of Hartwick & Cowley suggests an age of a few Gyr for them. They may thus be the products of binary mergers, i.e. evolutionary products of blue stragglers of an intermediate-age population. Some analogous stars in the halo of the Galaxy may have evolved from globular cluster type blue stragglers.
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Feast et al. (1992) studied this question.
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