Related papers: The White Dwarf Pareto: Tracing Mass Loss in Binar…
W UMa type binaries have two defining characteristics. These are (i) the effective temperatures of both components are very similar, and (ii) the secondary (currently less massive) component is overluminous for its current mass. We consider…
Brown dwarfs and giant planets orbiting close to a host star are subjected to significant irradiation that can modify the properties of their atmospheres. In order to test the atmospheric models that are used to describe these systems, it…
The mergers of double helium white dwarfs are believed to form isolated helium-rich hot subdwarfs. Observation shows that the helium-rich hot subdwarfs can be divided into two subgroups based on whether the surface is carbon-rich or…
Binary systems containing a magnetic white dwarf and a main-sequence star are considered extremely rare, perhaps non-existent. In the course of a search of magnetic fields in high-mass white dwarfs we have discovered a Sirius-like wide…
Some binary stars experience common envelope evolution, which is accompanied by drastic loss of angular momentum, mass, and orbital energy and which leaves behind close binaries often involving at least one white dwarf, neutron star, or…
Barium (Ba) dwarfs and CH subgiants are the less-evolved analogues of Ba and CH giants. They are F- to G-type main-sequence stars polluted with heavy elements by a binary companion when the latter was on the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB).…
I have undertaken a comprehensive statistical investigation of the ultracool dwarf companion distribution (spectral type M6 and later). Utilizing a Bayesian algorithm, I tested models of the companion distribution against data from an…
Close binaries consisting of a main sequence star and a white dwarf are considered as candidates for Type~Ia supernova progenitors. We present selfconsistent calculations of the time dependence of the structure of the main sequence star,…
We know that planetary systems are just as common around white dwarfs as around main sequence stars. However, self-consistently linking a planetary system across these two phases of stellar evolution through the violent giant branch poses…
The accretion of tidally disrupted planetary bodies is the current consensus model for the presence of photospheric metals commonly detected in white dwarfs. While most dynamical studies have considered a single star and associated…
We use analytical and N-body methods to examine the survival of wide stellar binaries against repeated encounters with dark substructures orbiting in the dark matter haloes of dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs). Our models adopt…
The majority of stars more massive than the Sun is found in binary or multiple star systems and many of them will interact during their evolution. Specific interactions, where progenitors and post-mass transfer (MT) systems are clearly…
Several dozen binary ultracool and brown dwarf systems have been identified to date. These systems represent valuable probes of star and planet formation at the lowest mass scales. To date, the study of these ultracool binaries has been…
We present in this contribution our set of multiwavelength synthesis models including the evolution of single and binary stars. The main results we have obtained can be summarized as follows: (a) massive close-binary systems will start to…
Because the majority of massive stars are born as members of close binary systems, populations of massive main-sequence stars contain stellar mergers and products of binary mass transfer. We simulate populations of massive stars accounting…
We investigate whether the recently-observed population of high-velocity white dwarfs can be derived from a population of binaries residing initially within the thin disk of the Galaxy. In particular we consider binaries where the primary…
Interacting double white dwarf binaries can give rise to a wide variety of astrophysical outcomes ranging from faint thermonuclear and Type Ia supernovae to the formation of neutron stars and stably accreting AM Canum Venaticorum systems.…
Recent observations of binary stars in the Galactic field show that the binary fraction and the mean orbital separation both decrease as a function of decreasing primary mass. We present $N$-body simulations of the effects of dynamical…
Aims: We study single and binary white dwarfs in the inner halo of the Milky Way in order to learn more about the conditions under which the population of halo stars was born, such as the initial mass function (IMF), the star formation…
The masses of compact objects like white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes are fundamental to astrophysics, but very difficult to measure. We present the results of an analysis of subluminous B (sdB) stars in close binary systems with…