Related papers: The Maxwell's demon of star clusters
Binary stars are dynamical systems formed by two stars that are physically bound by the gravitational force. Binary stars are privileged laboratories, allowing one to measure the fundamental properties of stars but also potentially changing…
The mass of stellar black holes (BHs) is currently thought to be in the 3-20 Msun range, but is highly uncertain: recent observations indicate the existence of at least one BH with mass >20 Msun. The metallicity of the progenitor star…
Most main sequence stars, unlike our Sun, belong to multiple systems with two or more stars. How and when these multiples come together and become bound is uncertain, since the earliest stages of star formation are difficult to resolve. We…
The star formation process in molecular clouds usually leads to the formation of multiple stellar systems, mostly binaries. Remaining disks around those stars may be located around individual stars (circumstellar disks) or around the entire…
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…
Compact stellar binaries are expected to survive in the dense environment of the Galactic Center. The stable binaries may undergo Kozai-Lidov oscillations due to perturbations from the central supermassive black hole (Sgr A*), yet the…
We know from observations that globular clusters are very efficient catalysts in forming unusual short-period binary systems or their offspring, such as low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs; neutron stars accreting matter from low-mass stellar…
The overall frequency and other statistical properties of binary systems suggest that star formation is intrinsically a complex and chaotic process, and that most binaries and single stars actually originate from the decay of multiple…
We present the first study of the dynamical evolution of an isolated star cluster that combines a significant population of primordial binaries with the presence of a central black hole. We use equal-mass direct N-body simulations, with N…
Most massive stars are found in the center of dense clusters, and have a companion fraction much higher than their lower mass siblings; the massive stars of the Trapezium core in Orion have ~ 1.5 companions each. This high multiplicity…
We show that binaries of stellar-mass black holes formed inside a young protoglobular cluster, can grow rapidly inside the cluster's core by accretion of the intracluster gas, before the gas may be depleted from the core. A black hole with…
Binary stars are pairs of stars that are gravitationally bound, providing in some cases accurate measurements of their masses and radii. As such, they serve as excellent testbeds for the theory of stellar structure and evolution. Moreover,…
The majority of star formation results in binaries or higher multiple systems, and planets in such systems are constrained to a limited range of orbital parameters in order to remain stable against perturbations from stellar companions.…
We analyze the dynamical evolution of binary stars that interact with a static background of single stars in the environment of a massive black hole (MBH). All stars are considered to be single mass, Newtonian point particles. We follow the…
The total mass of a distant star cluster is often derived from the virial theorem, using line-of-sight velocity dispersion measurements and half-light radii, under the implicit assumption that all stars are single (although it is known that…
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…
Although their existence is not yet confirmed observationally, intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) may play a key role in the dynamics of galactic nuclei. In this paper, we neglect the effect of the nuclear star cluster itself and…
The early evolution of dense stellar systems is governed by massive single star and binary evolution. Core collapse of dense massive star clusters can lead to the formation of very massive objects through stellar collisions ($M\geq$ 1000…
We present N-body simulations of intermediate-mass (3000-4000 Msun) young star clusters (SCs) with three different metallicities (Z=0.01, 0.1 and 1 Zsun), including metal-dependent stellar evolution recipes and binary evolution. Following…
This review concentrates almost entirely on globular star clusters. It emphasises the increasing realisation that few of the traditional problems of star cluster astronomy can be studied in isolation: the influence of the Galaxy affects…