Related papers: Eclipsing Stellar Binaries in the Galactic Center
As of today ten circumbinary planets orbiting solar type main sequence stars have been discovered. Nearly all of them orbit around the central binary very closely to the region of instability where it is difficult to form them in situ. It…
Massive black holes (MBHs) in galactic nuclei are believed to be surrounded by a high density stellar cluster, whose mass is mostly in hard-to-detect faint stars and compact remnants. Such dark cusps dominate the dynamics near the MBH: a…
Physical collisions between stars occur frequently in dense star clusters, either via close encounters between two single stars, or during strong dynamical interactions involving binary stars. Here we study stellar collisions that occur…
Binary star systems containing a neutron star or a black hole with an evolved, massive star are dynamically perturbed when the latter undergoes a supernova explosion. It is possible that the natal kick received by the newly-formed neutron…
LISA will detect $\sim \! 10^4$ Galactic binaries, the majority being double white dwarfs. However, approximately $\sim \! 1 \textrm{--} 5 \%$ of these systems will contain neutron stars which, if they can be correctly identified, will…
In eclipsing binaries the stellar rotation of the two components will cause a rotational Doppler beaming during eclipse ingress and egress when only part of the eclipsed component is covered. For eclipsing binaries with fast spinning…
Many planets are observed in stellar binary systems, and their frequency may be comparable to that of planetary systems around single stars. Binary stellar evolution in such systems influences the dynamical evolution of the resident…
Previous high resolution cosmological simulations predict the first stars to appear in the early universe to be very massive and to form in isolation. Here we discuss a cosmological simulation in which the central 50 solar mass clump breaks…
It is now clear that a binary pathway is responsible for a significant fraction of planetary nebulae, and the continually increasing sample of known central binaries means that we are now in a position to begin to use these systems to…
Galactic nuclei are often found to contain young stellar populations and, in most cases, a central supermassive black hole (SMBH). Most known massive stars are found in binaries or higher-multiplicity systems, and in a galactic nucleus the…
A widely considered characteristic of extra-solar planetary systems has been a seeming tendency for major axes of adjacent orbits to librate in stable configurations. Based on a new catalog of extra-solar planets (Butler et al. 2006) and…
Exoplanetary systems are found not only among single stars, but also binaries of widely varying parameters. Binaries with separations of 100--1000 au are prevalent in the Solar neighborhood; at these separations planet formation around 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…
In studying encounters between binaries and single stars, one is interested in three classes of events: exchanges of stars, hardening of the original binary by a third star, and the production of merged objects. We present a means for…
Bipolar planetary nebulae (PNe) are thought to result from binary star interactions and, indeed, tens of binary central stars of PNe have been found, in particular using photometric time-series that allow detecting post-common envelope…
It appears that at least several percent of large Kuiper belt objects are members of wide binaries. Physical collisions are too infrequent to account for their formation. Collisionless gravitational interactions are more promising. These…
We study the compact binary population in star clusters, focusing on binaries containing black holes, using a self-consistent Monte Carlo treatment of dynamics and full stellar evolution. We find that the black holes experience strong mass…
I list the 16 planetary nebulae (PNe) known to contain close-binary nuclei, and show that the nebulae generally have axisymmetric structures, including elliptical, bipolar, or ring morphologies. The orbital periods range from 2.7 hr to 16…
Binary black holes can form efficiently in dense young stellar clusters, such as the progenitors of globular clusters, via a combination of gravitational segregation and cluster evaporation. We use simple analytic arguments supported by…
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…