Related papers: V1309 SCO - Understanding a merger
Eclipsing millisecond pulsars in close ($P_b < 1$~day) binary systems provide a different view of pulsar winds and shocks than do isolated pulsars. Since 2009, the numbers of these systems known in the Galactic field has increased…
A fraction of core-collapse supernovae (SNe) with signs of interaction with a dense circumstellar matter are preceded by bright precursor emission. While the precursors are likely caused by a mass ejection before core-collapse, their…
Rapidly rotating stars are readily produced in binary systems. An accreting star in a binary system can be spun up by mass accretion and quickly approach the break-up limit. Mergers between two stars in a binary are expected to result in…
The common envelope (CE) phase is an important stage in binary stellar evolution. It is needed to explain many close binary stellar systems, such as cataclysmic variables, Type Ia supernova progenitors, or X-ray binaries. To form the…
Mergers of black-hole binaries are expected to release large amounts of energy in the form of gravitational radiation. However, binary evolution models predict merger rates too low to be of observational interest. In this paper we explore…
The orbital separation of compact binary stars will shrink with time due to the emission of gravitational radiation. This inspiralling phase of a binary system's evolution generally will be very long compared to the system's orbital period,…
The population of binary black hole mergers observed in gravitational waves, together with astrophysical simulations, can help us to understand the properties of the progenitors and the binary formation mechanisms in different astrophysical…
In galactic centers, stars and binaries can be injected into low-angular-momentum orbits, resulting in close encounters with the central supermassive black hole (SMBH). Previous works have shown that under different conditions, such close…
Young binaries within dense molecular clouds are subject to dynamical friction from ambient gas. Consequently, their orbits decay, with both the separation and period decreasing in time. A simple analytic expression is derived for this…
Numerical-relativity simulations for the merger of binary neutron stars are performed for a variety of equations of state (EOSs) and for a plausible range of the neutron-star mass, focusing primarily on the properties of the material…
We estimate binary compact object merger detection rates for LIGO, including the binaries formed in ellipticals long ago. Specifically, we convolve hundreds of model realizations of elliptical- and spiral-galaxy population syntheses with a…
With the first observation of a binary neutron star merger through gravitational waves and light GW170817, compact binary mergers have now taken the center stage in nuclear astrophysics. They are thought to be one of the main astrophysical…
Merging compact binaries are the one source of gravitational radiation so far identified. Because short-period systems which will merge in less than a Hubble time have already been observed as binary pulsars, they are important both as…
We aim to study the progenitor properties and expected rates of the two lowest-mass binary black hole (BH) mergers, GW 151226 and GW 170608, detected within the first two Advanced LIGO-Virgo runs, in the context of the isolated…
Compact binary mergers involving at least one neutron star are promising sites for the synthesis of $\textit{r}$-process elements found in stars and planets. However, mergers can take place at significant offsets from their host galaxies,…
Many white dwarfs are observed in compact double white dwarf binaries and, through the emission of gravitational waves, a large fraction are destined to merge. The merger remnants that do not explode in a Type Ia supernova are expected to…
Recently discovered bursts of gravitational waves provide a good opportunity to verify the current view on the evolution of close binary stars. Modern population synthesis computer programs help to study this evolution from two main…
Binary black hole mergers are among the most violent events in the Universe, leading to extreme warping of spacetime and copious emission of gravitational radiation. Even though black holes are the most compact objects they are not…
A six-dimensional parameter space based on high-resolution numerical simulations of isolated binary galaxy collisions has been constructed to investigate the dynamical friction timescales, $\tau_{\rm mer}$, for major mergers. Our…
We present a technique to identify the most probable dynamical formation scenario for an observed binary or triple system containing one or more merger products or, alternatively, to rule out the possibility of a dynamical origin. Our…