Related papers: Wave-driven stellar expansion and binary interacti…

We model explosions driven by the coalescence of a black hole or neutron star with the core of its massive-star companion. Upon entering a common envelope phase, a compact object may spiral all the way to the core. The concurrent release of…

Unpulsed, high-energy emission from pulsar binaries can be attributed to the interaction of a pulsar wind with that of a companion star. At the shock between the outflows, particles carried away from the pulsar magnetosphere are accelerated…

Rotation and mass loss are crucially interlinked properties of massive stars, strongly affecting their evolution and ultimate fate. Massive stars rotating near their breakup limit shed mass centrifugally, creating Be stars with…

Supernovae (SNe) powered by interaction with circumstellar material provide evidence for intense stellar mass loss during the final years leading up to core collapse. We have argued that during and after core neon burning, internal gravity…

The structure of stellar envelopes strongly influences the course and outcome of binary mass transfer, in particular of common envelope (CE) evolution. Convective envelopes can most easily be ejected during CE events, leading to…

Three-dimensional simulations usually fail to cover the entire dynamical common-envelope phase of gravitational wave progenitor systems due to the vast range of spatial and temporal scales involved. We investigated the common-envelope…

Asymmetric shapes and evidence for binary central stars suggest a common-envelope origin for many bipolar planetary nebulae. The bipolar components of the nebulae are observed to expand faster than the rest and the more slowly expanding…

I summarize recent analytical and numerical studies of the common envelope (CE) process and suggest to replace the commonly used alpha-prescription for the CE ejection by a prescription based on final migration and jets launched by the…

I argue that the high percentage of PNe that are shaped by jets show that main sequence stars in binary systems can accrete mass at a high rate from an accretion disk and launch jets. Not only this allows jets to shape PNe, but this also…

During the core collapse of massive stars, the formation of the protoneutron star is accompanied by the emission of a significant amount of mass-energy ($\sim 0.3 \, M_{\odot}$) in the form of neutrinos. This mass-energy loss generates an…

We show that a fast wind that expands into a bipolar nebula composed of two opposite jet-inflated bubbles can form a pair of bipolar rings around giant stars. Our model assumes three mass loss episodes: a spherical slow and dense shell, two…

Using the one-dimensional numerical code MESA, we simulate mass accretion at very high rates onto massive main sequence stars, M=30, 60, 80 Mo, and find that these stars can accrete up to 10% of their mass without expanding much if we…

We investigate the mass loss from a rotationally distorted envelope following the early, rapid in-spiral of a companion star inside a common envelope. For initially wide, massive binaries (M_1+M_2=20M_{\odot}, P\sim 10 yr), the primary has…

After the initial fast spiral-in phase experienced by a common-envelope binary, the system may enter a slow, self-regulated phase, possibly lasting 100s of years, in which all the energy released by orbital decay can be efficiently…

Some binary stars experience common envelope evolution, which is accompanied by drastic loss of angular momentum, mass, and orbital energy and which leaves behind close binaries often involving at least one white dwarf, neutron star, or…

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…

According to the traditional scenario for core-collapse supernovae, the core of the collapsing star forms a neutron star and its gravitational energy release sends out a shockwave into the stellar envelope. However, in a significant number…

Energetic outflows from main sequence stars accreting mass at very high rates might account for the powering of some eruptive objects, such as merging main sequence stars, major eruptions of luminous blue variables, e.g., the Great Eruption…

Massive binaries that merge as compact objects are the progenitors of gravitational-wave sources. Most of these binaries experience one or more phases of mass transfer, during which one of the stars loses part or all of its outer envelope…

We simulate the evolution of binary systems with a massive primary star of 15Mo where we introduce an enhanced mass loss due to jets that the secondary star might launch, and find that in many cases the enhanced mass loss brings the binary…