Related papers: Formation and Evolution of Accreting Compact Objec…
The galaxies of the Local Group that are currently forming stars can serve as our laboratories for understanding star formation and the evolution of massive stars. In this talk I will summarize what I think we've learned about these topics…
The extreme conditions found near black holes and neutron stars provide a unique opportunity for testing physical theories. Observations of both types of compact objects can be used to probe regions of strong gravity, allowing for tests of…
X-ray observations of galaxies have grown from a curiosity into a full-fledged field of astronomy. These observations provide unique information on black holes, binary stars, and the hot phase of the ISM, which can be used to constrain the…
The understanding of the accretion process on to compact objects in binary systems is an important part of modern astrophysics. Theoretical work, primarily that of Ghosh & Lamb (1979), has made clear predictions for the behaviour of such…
White dwarfs are the most common endpoints of stellar evolution. They are often found in close binary systems in which the white dwarf is accreting matter from a companion star, either via an accretion disc or channelled along the white…
The study of massive X-ray binaries provides important observational diagnostics for a number of fundamental astrophysical issues, such as the evolution of massive stars, the stellar winds of massive stars, the formation of compact objects…
Recent discoveries have confirmed the existence of a large population of X-ray sources fuelled by accretion from the stellar wind of an OB supergiant. Such systems are powerful laboratories to study many aspects of astrophysics. Over the…
The hypothesis that massive stars form by accretion can be investigated by simple analytical calculations that describe the effect that the formation of a massive star has on its own accretion flow. Within a simple accretion model that…
The formation of low-mass stars in molecular clouds involves accretion disks and jets, which are of broad astrophysical interest. Accreting stars represent the closest examples of these phenomena. Star and planet formation are also…
Understanding stellar evolution and its effect on planetary systems is crucial for correctly interpreting the chemical constraints of exo-planetary material that can be given to us by white dwarfs. This article will describe how asteroids,…
Circumstellar disks are an integral part of the star formation process and the sites where planets are formed. Understanding the physical processes that drive their evolution, as disks evolve from optically thick to optically thin, is…
The study of the morphology of galaxies is important in order to understand the formation and evolution of galaxies and their sub-components as a function of luminosity, environment, and star-formation and galaxy assembly over cosmic time.…
It is now clear that central star binarity plays a key role in the formation and evolution of planetary nebulae, with a significant fraction playing host to close-binary central stars which have survived one or more common envelope…
The manner the galaxy accretes matter along with the star formation rates at different epochs, influence the evolution of the stable isotopic inventories of the galaxy. A detailed analysis is presented here to study the dependence of the…
Massive stars are essential to understand a variety of branches of astronomy including galaxy and star cluster evolution, nucleosynthesis and supernovae, pulsars and black holes. It has become evident that massive star evolution is very…
Close-orbit binaries consisting of two compact objects are a center of attention because of the detection of gravitational-radiation-induced mergers. The creation of close, compact-object binaries involves physical processes that are not…
In this review I first summarize why binaries are key objects in the study of stellar populations, key objects to understand the evolution of star clusters, key objects to understand galaxies and thus the universe. I then focus on 4…
To some extent, all Galactic binary systems hosting a compact object are potential `microquasars', so much as all galactic nuclei may have been quasars, once upon a time. The necessary ingredients for a compact object of stellar mass to…
Gravitational-wave detections are enabling measurements of the rate of coalescences of binaries composed of two compact objects -- neutron stars and/or black holes. The coalescence rate of binaries containing neutron stars is further…
Very compact objects probe extreme gravitational fields and may be the key to understand outstanding puzzles in fundamental physics. These include the nature of dark matter, the fate of spacetime singularities, or the loss of unitarity in…