Related papers: Is our Sun a Singleton?
The stars that populate the solar neighbourhood were formed in stellar clusters. Through N-body simulations of these clusters, we measure the rate of close encounters between stars. By monitoring the interaction histories of each star, we…
The majority of stars form in star clusters and many are thought to have planetary companions. We demonstrate that multi-planet systems are prone to instabilities as a result of frequent stellar encounters in these star clusters much more…
Thousands of confirmed and candidate exoplanets have been identified in recent years. Consequently, theoretical research on the formation and dynamical evolution of planetary systems has seen a boost, and the processes of planet-planet…
Close encounters between stars in star forming regions are important as they can perturb or destroy protoplanetary discs, young planetary systems, and stellar multiple systems. We simulate simple, viralised, equal-mass $N$-body star…
Strong encounters between single stars and binaries play a pivotal role in the evolution of star clusters. Such encounters can also dramatically modify the orbital parameters of binaries, exchange partners in and out of binaries, and are a…
The overall frequency and other statistical properties of binary systems suggest that star formation is intrinsically a complex and chaotic process, and that most binaries and single stars actually originate from the decay of multiple…
Star formation is spatially clustered across a range of environments, from dense stellar clusters to unbound associations. As a result, radiative or dynamical interactions with neighbouring stars disrupt (proto)planetary systems and limit…
In this short communication I compare recent findings suggesting a low binary star fraction for late type stars with knowledge concerning the forms of the stellar initial and present day mass functions for masses down to the hydrogen…
Many, possibly most, stars form in binary and higher-order multiple systems. Therefore, the properties and frequency of binary systems provide strong clues to the star-formation process, and constraints on star-formation models. However,…
Young stars are mostly found in dense stellar environments, and even our own Solar system may have formed in a star cluster. Here, we numerically explore the evolution of planetary systems similar to our own Solar system in star clusters.…
Stellar models of massive single stars are still plagued by major uncertainties. Testing and calibrating against observations is essential for their reliability. For this purpose one preferably uses observed stars that have never…
Most stars form in a clustered environment. Both single and binary stars will sometimes encounter planetary systems in such crowded environments. Encounter rates for binaries may be larger than for single stars, even for binary fractions as…
Most main sequence stars, unlike our Sun, belong to multiple systems with two or more stars. How and when these multiples come together and become bound is uncertain, since the earliest stages of star formation are difficult to resolve. We…
One well-tested method in science is to separate the object of interest from its surroundings and look at it in isolation. The advantage is that unimportant information is removed and the true properties of the object are seen more clearly.…
Stars are mostly found in binary and multiple systems, as at least 50% of all solar-like stars have companions - a fraction that goes up to 100% for the most massive stars. Moreover, a large fraction of them will interact in some way or…
Most mechanisms proposed for the formation of planets are modified versions of the mechanism proposed for the solar system. Here we argue that, in terms of those planetary systems which have been observed, the case for the solar system…
Most stars and their planets form in open clusters. Over 95 per cent of such clusters have stellar densities too low (less than a hundred stars per cubic parsec) to withstand internal and external dynamical stresses and fall apart within a…
The formation of massive stars in close binary systems is complicated due to their high radiation pressure, the crowded environment and the expected minimum separation for fragmentation being many times greater than the orbital separation.…
The formation of massive stars is one of the major unsolved problems in stellar astrophysics. However, only few if any of these are found as single stars, on average massive stars have more than one companion. Many of them are born in dense…
The present dynamical configuration of planets in binary star systems may not reflect their formation process since the binary orbit may have changed in the past after the planet formation process was completed. An observed binary system…