Related papers: The spin-orbit alignment of visual binaries
The presence of strong large-scale stable magnetic fields in a significant portion of early-type stars, white dwarfs, and neutron stars is well established. Despite this, the origins of these fields remain unresolved, with leading…
Stellar obliquity, the angle between a planet's orbital axis and its host star's spin axis, traces the formation and evolution of a planetary system. In transiting exoplanet observations, only the sky-projected stellar obliquity can be…
Spinning neutron stars (NSs) can emit continuous gravitational waves (GWs) that carry a wealth of information about the compact object. If such a signal is detected, it will provide us with new insight into the physical properties of matter…
The first direct detections of gravitational waves from merging binary black holes open a unique window into the binary black hole formation environment. One promising environmental signature is the angular distribution of the black hole…
The orbits of binary stars precess as a result of general relativistic effects, forces arising from the asphericity of the stars, and forces from additional stars or planets in the system. For most binaries, the theoretical and observed…
We develop a fourth-order numerical integrator to simulate the coupled spin and orbital motions of two rigid bodies having arbitrary mass distributions under the influence of their mutual gravitational potential. We simulate the dynamics of…
We consider the currently observed spin distributions of various types of neutron stars, including isolated and binary radio millisecond pulsars in the Galactic plane and globular cluster system as well as neutron stars in low-mass X-ray…
Warped accretion discs are expected in many protostellar binary systems. In this paper, we study the long-term evolution of disc warp and precession for discs with dimensionless thickness $H/r$ larger than their viscosity parameter…
We use TESS full-frame imaging data to investigate the angular momentum evolution of young stars in Orion Complex. We confirm recent findings that stars with rotation periods faster than 2 d are overwhelmingly binaries, with typical…
As part of the BANANA project (Binaries Are Not Always Neatly Aligned), we have found that the eclipsing binary CV Velorum has misaligned rotation axes. Based on our analysis of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, we find sky-projected…
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 analyse the evolution of a mildly inclined circumbinary disc that orbits an eccentric orbit binary by means of smoother particle hydrodynamic (SPH) simulations and linear theory. We show that the alignment process of an initially…
Binary black holes may form both through isolated binary evolution and through dynamical interactions in dense stellar environments. The formation channel leaves an imprint on the alignment between the black hole spins and the orbital…
With observations of the EP Cru system, we continue our series of measurements of spin-orbit angles in eclipsing binary star systems, the BANANA project (Binaries Are Not Always Neatly Aligned). We find a close alignment between the sky…
The discovery of giant planets orbiting close to their host stars was one of the most unexpected results of early exoplanetary science. Astronomers have since found that a significant fraction of these 'Hot Jupiters' move on orbits…
Samples of reliably identified halo wide binaries are scarce. If reasonably free from selection effects and with a small degree of contamination by chance alignments, these wide binaries become a powerful dynamical tool, having provided one…
Stars in short-period binaries typically have spins that are aligned and synchronized with the orbit of their companion. In triple systems, however, the combination of spin and orbital precession can cause the star's rotation to evolve to a…
Black-hole (BH) binary mergers driven by gravitational perturbations of tertiary companions constitute an important class of dynamical formation channels for compact binaries detected by LIGO/VIRGO. Recent works have examined numerically…
We present photometric and spectroscopic observations of the 2009 Feb. 2 transit of the exoplanet XO-3b. The new data show that the planetary orbital axis and stellar rotation axis are misaligned, as reported earlier by Hebrard and…
In recent years, several protoplanetary discs have been observed to exhibit spirals, both in scattered light and (sub)millimetre continuum data. The HD 100453 binary star system hosts such a disc around its primary. Previous work has argued…