Related papers: Stellar Multiplicity
Most of our current understanding of the planet formation mechanism is based on the planet metallicity correlation derived mostly from solar-type stars harbouring gas-giant planets. To achieve a far more reaching grasp on the substellar…
Around the turn of the last century, star clusters of all kinds were considered "simple" stellar populations. Over the past decade, this situation has changed dramatically. At the same time, star clusters are among the brightest stellar…
The fates of planetary systems provide unassailable insights into their formation and represent rich cross-disciplinary dynamical laboratories. Mounting observations of post-main-sequence planetary systems necessitate a complementary level…
Observations of the dust and gas around embedded stellar clusters reveal some of the processes involved in their formation and evolution. Large scale mass infall with rates dM/dt=4e-4 solar masses/year is found to be disrupted on small…
In spite of significant recent and ongoing research efforts, most of the early evolution and long-term fate of young massive star clusters remain clouded in uncertainties. Here, I discuss our understanding of the initial conditions of star…
Stars do not simply pop up on the main sequence. Before the stars arrive on the zero-age main sequence, they form in the collapses of molecular clouds, gain matter through accretion processes, and compress their cores until hydrogen can…
Understanding the star-formation properties of galaxies as a function of cosmic epoch is a critical exercise in studies of galaxy evolution. Traditionally, stellar population synthesis models have been used to obtain best fit parameters…
Galactic globular clusters are not simple stellar populations. And nothing is simple in their study, basically because we try to reconstruct chains of events that occurred at redshift z > 2-3 by observing these objects at z=0, after a…
This review concentrates almost entirely on globular star clusters. It emphasises the increasing realisation that few of the traditional problems of star cluster astronomy can be studied in isolation: the influence of the Galaxy affects…
Binary stars are as common as single stars. Binary stars are of immense importance to astrophysicists because that they allow us to determine the masses of the stars independent of their distances. They are the cornerstone of the…
Determining how galaxies accumulate stellar mass is paramount to understanding the Universe. Two primary mechanisms drive this process: star-formation (SF) & mergers. Our understanding of star formation, and to some degree the processes…
We report about an ongoing photometric and spectroscopic monitoring survey of about 250 O- and 540 B-type stars in the southern Milky Way with the aim to determine the fraction of close binary systems as a function of mass and to determine…
The frequency of planets in binaries is an important issue in the field of extrasolar planet studies, because of its relevance in estimating of the global planet population of our Galaxy and the clues it can give to our understanding of…
The observable characteristics and subsequent evolution of young stellar populations is dominated by their massive stars. As our understanding of those massive stars and the factors affecting their evolution improves, so our interpretation…
The majority of star formation results in binaries or higher multiple systems, and planets in such systems are constrained to a limited range of orbital parameters in order to remain stable against perturbations from stellar companions.…
Massive stars play a major role not only in stellar evolution but also galactic evolution theory. This is because of their dynamical interaction with binary companions, and because their strong winds and explosive deaths as supernovae…
We investigate how the multiplicity of binary, triple and quadruple star systems changes as the systems evolve from the zero-age main-sequence to the Hubble time. We find the change in multiplicity fractions over time for each data set,…
The history of the formation and evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy is found in the spatial distribution, kinematics, age and chemical abundance distributions of long-lived stars. From this fossil record one can in principle extract the star…
Although fundamental for astrophysics, the processes that produce massive stars are not well understood. Large distances, high extinction, and short timescales of critical evolutionary phases make observations of these processes…
Stellar populations contain the most important information about star clus- ter formation and evolution. Until several decades ago, star clusters were believed to be ideal laboratories for studies of simple stellar populations (SSPs).…