Related papers: Eclipsing binary systems as tests of low-mass stel…
The detection of O- and B-type stars with extremely low-mass companions is very important for understanding the formation and evolution of binary stars. However, their finding remains a challenge because the low-mass components in such…
The stellar mass-luminosity relation is poorly constrained by observations for high mass stars. We describe our program to find eclipsing massive binaries in the Magellanic Clouds using photometry of regions rich in massive stars, and our…
Contact binary star systems represent the long-lived penultimate phase of binary evolution. Population statistics of their physical parameters inform understanding of binary evolutionary pathways and end products. We use light curves and…
Accurate characterization of stellar populations is of prime importance to correctly understand the formation and evolution process of our Galaxy. The field of asteroseismology has been particularly successful in such an endeavor providing…
I present a discussion of fundamental stellar parameters and their observational determination in the context of interferometric measurements with current and future optical/infrared interferometric facilities. Stellar parameters and the…
The accurate measurement of stellar masses over a wide range of galaxy properties is essential for better constraining models of galaxy evolution. Emission line galaxies (ELGs) tend to have better redshift estimates than continuum-selected…
The effects which star cluster concentration and binarity have on observable parameters, that characterise the dynamical state of a population of stars after their birth aggregate dissolves, are investigated. To this end, the correlations…
A gap in exoplanets' radius distribution has been widely attributed to the photo-evaporation threshold of their progenitors' gaseous envelope. Giant impacts can also lead to substantial mass-loss. The outflowing gas endures tidal torque…
Satellites of asteroids have been discovered in nearly every known small body population, and a remarkable aspect of the known satellites is the diversity of their properties. They tell a story of vast differences in formation and evolution…
Overshooting from the convective cores of stars more massive than about 1.2 M(Sun) has a profound impact on their subsequent evolution. And yet, the formulation of the overshooting mechanism in current stellar evolution models has a free…
Observations of binaries have traditionally provided the means for ascertaining stellar masses. Here, we use the published data on 8 pre-main-sequence pairs to gauge the accuracy of our own, recently calculated, evolutionary tracks (Palla &…
We selected mass-transferring binary candidates from the catalog of Kepler eclipsing binary stars and investigated the dependence of the mass-transfer rate on several astrophysical quantities, including orbital period, semi-major axis, mass…
A long-standing issue in the theory of low mass stars is the discrepancy between predicted and observed radii and effective temperatures. In spite of the increasing availability of very precise radius determinations from eclipsing binaries…
The recent discovery of an eclipsing hierarchical triple system with two low-mass stars in a close orbit (KOI-126) by Carter et al. (2011) appeared to reinforce the evidence that theoretical stellar evolution models are not able to…
Evolutionary models of pre-main sequence stars remain largely uncalibrated, especially for masses below that of the Sun, making each new dynamical mass and radius measurement a valuable test of theoretical models. Stellar mass dependent…
Accumulation of new data on stellar hierarchical systems and the progress in numerical simulations of their formation open the door to genetic classification of these systems, where properties of a certain group (family) of objects are…
Our understanding of massive stars remains incomplete. Many high-z galaxies and nearby analogs exhibit strong He II emission, indicating an abundance of photons with energies >54.4 eV that standard single-star population models cannot…
Binary interactions are commonplace among massive stars, giving rise observed phenomena such as X-ray binaries, stripped stars & supernovae, and gravitational-wave sources. The multiplicity properties of massive stars thus represent a…
With the prevalence of wide-field, time-domain photometric sky surveys, the number of eclipsing white dwarf systems being discovered is increasing dramatically. An efficient method to follow these up will be key to determining any…
We present analytic formulae that approximate the evolution of stars for a wide range of mass and metallicity. Stellar luminosity, radius and core mass are given as a function of age, M and Z, for all phases from the zero-age main-sequence…