Related papers: V1309 SCO - Understanding a merger
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…
Supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHs) are a fascinating byproduct of galaxy mergers in the hierarchical universe. In the last stage of their orbital evolution, gravitational wave radiation drives the binary inspiral and produces the…
We conduct three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of energy deposition into the envelope of a red giant star as a result of the merger of two close main sequence stars or brown dwarfs, and show that the outcome is a highly…
Binary neutron star mergers are promising sources of gravitational waves for ground-based detectors such as Advanced LIGO. Neutron-rich material ejected by these mergers may also be the main source of r-process elements in the Universe,…
Most stars are in multiple systems, with the majority of those being binaries. A large number of planets have been confirmed in binary stars and therefore it is important to understand their formation and dynamical evolution. We perform…
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…
Anticipating the kinematic constraints from the Gaia mission, we perform an extensive numerical study of the evolution of massive binary systems to predict the peculiar velocities that stars obtain when their companion collapses and…
Stripped stars are a common product of binary stellar systems and span a wide mass range from Wolf-Rayet stars to hot subdwarfs and helium white dwarfs. The recent discovery of intermediate-mass stripped stars, with masses between those of…
Type II supernova progenitors are expected to emit copious amounts of mass in a dense stellar wind prior to the explosion. When the progenitor is a member of a binary, the orbital motion modulates the density of this wind. When the…
The majority of massive stars are formed in binary systems. It is hence reasonable to expect that most core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) take place in binaries and the existence of a companion star may leave some imprints in observed…
More than half of all main-sequence (MS) stars have one or more companions, and many of those with initial masses <8 M$_\odot$ are born in hierarchical triples. These systems feature two stars in a close orbit (the inner binary) while a…
Double compact objects (neutron stars and black holes) found in binaries with small orbital separations are known to spiral in and are expected to coalesce eventually because of the emission of gravitational waves. Such inspiral and merger…
When binaries are injected into low-angular-momentum orbits around a central supermassive black hole (SMBH), various outcomes can occur, including binary tidal breakup, double stellar disruptions and stellar collision. We use hydrodynamical…
Massive stars in the red supergiant (RSG) phase are known to undergo strong mass loss through winds and observations indicate that a substantial part of this mass loss could be driven by localised and episodic outflows. Various mechanisms…
We have developed a detailed stellar evolution code capable of following the simultaneous evolution of both stars in a binary system, together with their orbital properties. To demonstrate the capabilities of the code we investigate…
Binary neutron star mergers are one of the ultimate events of massive binary star evolution, and our understanding of their parent system is still in its infancy. Upcoming gravitational wave detections, coupled with multi-wavelength…
The first directly observed gravitational wave event, GW150914, featuring the merger of two massive black holes, highlighted the need to determine how these systems of compact remnant binaries are formed. We use the binary population…
Stellar mergers and common-envelope evolution are fast (dynamical-timescale) interactions in binary stars that drastically alter their evolution. They are key to understanding a plethora of astrophysical phenomena. Stellar mergers are…
The observation of gravitational waves from merging black holes and neutron stars provides a unique opportunity to discern information about their astrophysical environment. Two signatures that are considered powerful tracers to distinguish…
The stellar origin of gamma-ray bursts can be explained by the rapid release of energy in a highly collimated, extremely relativistic jet. This in turn appears to require a rapidly spinning highly magnetised stellar core that collapses into…