Related papers: The post-nova population
Four evolutionary channels leading to the formation of wide binary millisecond pulsars are investigated. The majority of binary millisecond pulsars are found to descend from systems in which the most massive component undergoes a…
For understanding the process of star formation it is essential to know how many stars are formed as singles or in multiple systems, as a function of environment and binary parameters. This requires a characterization of the primordial…
Following the collapse of their cores, some of the massive binary stars that populate our Universe are expected to form merging binaries composed of black holes and neutron stars. Gravitational-wave observations of the resulting compact…
Theoretical modelling of the evolution of classical and recurrent novae plays an important role in studies of binary evolution, nucleosynthesis and accretion physics. However, from a theoretical perspective the observed statistical…
I report on a large-scale search for the orbital periods (P) of most known nova systems, by looking for significant, coherent, and stable optical photometric modulation in two or more independent light curves taken mostly from the large…
Compact object binaries (a black hole or a neutron star orbiting a non-degenerate stellar companion) are key to our understanding of late massive star evolution, in addition to being some of the best probes of extreme gravity and accretion…
Data obtained in the 1950-1955 Palomar campaign for the discovery of classical novae in M81 are set out in detail. Positions and apparent B magnitudes are listed for the 23 novae that were found. There is modest evidence that the spatial…
Modeling binary star populations is critical to linking the theories of star formation and stellar evolution with observations. In order to test these theories, we need accurate models of observable binary populations. The Kepler Eclipsing…
We describe our method to find the primordial binary population in the Sco OB2 association. We present the results of our ADONIS and VLT/NACO near-infrared adaptive optics binarity surveys of A and late-B stars in Sco OB2. We combine these…
Novae, which are the sudden visual brightening triggered by runaway thermonuclear burning on the surface of an accreting white dwarf, are fairly common and bright events. Despite their astronomical significance as nearby laboratories for…
The coalescence of compact binaries containing neutron stars or black holes is one of the most promising signals for advanced ground-based laser interferometer gravitational-wave detectors, with the first direct detections expected over the…
We present a robust method to characterize the gravitational wave emission from the remnant of a neutron star coalescence. Our approach makes only minimal assumptions about the morphology of the signal and provides a full posterior…
One promising method to test progenitor models for Type Ia supernovae is to identify surviving companion stars in historical supernova remnants. A surviving companion will have been strongly affected by its interaction with the supernova…
Previous work indicates that about 10% of planetary-nebula nuclei (PNNi) are photometrically variable short-period binaries with periods of hours to a few days. These systems have most likely descended from common-envelope (CE) interactions…
We report here on two complementary population synthesis studies which relate directly to the formation and evolution of neutron star binaries in globular clusters. In the first, we compute the probability of retaining neutron stars in…
We analyze the currently available observations of X-ray binaries in a consistent way, to re-determine the masses of the neutron stars in these systems. In particular, our attention is focussed on a realistic and consistent assessment of…
A new generation of observatories is looking for gravitational waves. These waves, emitted by highly relativistic systems, will open a new window for ob- servation of the cosmos when they are detected. Among the most promising sources of…
We present the results of data-mining the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) archive for data on classical and recurrent novae. We find that the detections are consistent with dust emission, line emission, emission by a stellar…
Orbits of 55 visual binary stars are computed using recent speckle interferometry data from the SOAR telescope: 33 first-time orbits and 22 revisions of previous orbit calculations. The orbital periods range from 1.4 to 370 years, the…
The efficient use of near-IR data in studies of external stellar populations depends on our ability to recognize the nature of the predominant sources of light, and to interprete these findings in terms of age and metallicity. Here we focus…