Related papers: Structure and evolution of high-mass stellar merge…
We investigate the evolution of collisionally merged stars with mass of ~100 MSun which might be formed in dense star clusters. We assumed that massive stars with several tens Msun collide typically after ~1Myr of the formation of the…
We explore the evolution of collisionally merged stars in the blue straggler region of the HR diagram. The starting models for our stellar evolution calculations are the results of the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations of…
Collisions of main sequence stars occur frequently in dense star clusters. In open and globular clusters, these collisions produce merger remnants that may be observed as blue stragglers. Detailed theoretical models of this process require…
Stellar collisions are an important formation channel for blue straggler stars in globular and old open clusters. Hydrodynamical simulations have shown that the remnants of such collisions are out of thermal equilibrium, are not strongly…
In the cores of young dense star clusters repeated stellar collisions involving the same object can occur, which has been suggested to lead to the formation of an intermediate-mass black hole. In order to verify this scenario we compute the…
In dense stellar clusters, binary-single and binary-binary encounters can ultimately lead to collisions involving two or more stars. A comprehensive survey of multi-star collisions would need to explore an enormous amount of parameter…
We study close encounters involving massive main sequence stars and the evolution of the exotic products of these encounters as common--envelope systems or possible hypernova progenitors. We show that parabolic encounters between low-- and…
A significant fraction of stars experience close interactions, including collisions resulting from gravitational encounters and mergers within close binary systems. These processes can produce more massive stars that may give rise to…
The early evolution of dense star clusters is possibly dominated by close interactions between stars, and physical collisions between stars may occur quite frequently. Simulating a stellar collision event can be an intensive numerical task,…
We continue our exploration of collisionally merged stars in the blue straggler region of the color-magnitude diagram. We report the results of new SPH calculations of parabolic collisions between two main-sequence stars, with the initial…
When two stars collide and merge they form a new star that can stand out against the background population in a starcluster as a blue straggler. In so called collision runaways many stars can merge and may form a very massive star that…
Post-main-sequence binary mergers are a common evolutionary pathway for massive stars, but the effects of merging on the long-term structure and evolution of the resulting star are a matter of active debate. Furthermore, the way in which…
Stellar mergers are responsible for a large variety of astrophysical phenomena. They form blue straggler stars, give rise to spectacular transients, and produce some of the most massive stars in the Universe. Here, we focus on mergers from…
Nuclear star clusters (NSCs) surrounding supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are among the densest stellar environments in the universe. In these environments, collisions can shape the stellar mass function and produce exotic stellar…
The hydrodynamics of stellar collisions and mergers is discussed in the context of blue straggler formation. Emphasis is placed on the very important question of hydrodynamic mixing during the merger process. Recent results of…
In young star clusters, the density can be high enough and the velocity dispersion low enough for stars to collide and merge with a significant probability. This has been suggested as a possible way to build up the high-mass portion of the…
We report the results of new SPH calculations of parabolic collisions between two main-sequence stars in a globular cluster. Such collisions are directly relevant to the formation of blue stragglers. In particular, we consider parent stars…
The evolution of stellar collision products in cluster simulations has usually been modelled using simplified prescriptions. Such prescriptions either replace the collision product with an (evolved) main sequence star, or assume that the…
The observational consequences of the merger scenario for massive star formation are explored and contrasted with the gradual accumulation of mass by accretion. Protostellar mergers may produce high luminosity infrared flares lasting years…
We use smoothed-particle hydrodynamics to examine differences between direct collisions of single stars and binary star mergers in their roles as possible blue straggler star formation mechanisms. We find in all cases that core helium in…