The formation rate of blue stragglers in 47 Tucanae

We investigate the effects of changes in the blue straggler formation rate in globular clusters on the blue straggler distribution in the color-magnit ude diagram. We find that the blue straggler distribution is highly sensiti ve to the past formation rate. Comparison of our models to new UBV observat ions of a region close to the core of 47 Tucanae suggests that this cluster may have stopped forming blue stragglers several Gyr ago. This cessation o f formation can be associated with an epoch of primordial binary burning wh ich has been invoked in other clusters to infer the imminence of core colla pse.