Related papers: Stellar mergers and common-envelope evolution
Most stars are members of binaries, and the evolution of a star in a close binary system differs from that of an ioslated star due to the proximity of its companion star. The components in a binary system interact in many ways and binary…
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 discovery via gravitational waves of binary black hole systems with total masses greater than $60M_\odot$ has raised interesting questions for stellar evolution theory. Among the most promising formation channels for these systems is…
About 10% of stars more massive than ${\approx}\,1.5\,\mathrm{M}_\odot$ have strong, large-scale surface magnetic fields and are being discussed as progenitors of highly-magnetic white dwarfs and magnetars. The origin of these fields…
The common envelope interaction is responsible for evolved close binaries. Among them are a minority of central stars of planetary nebula (PN). Recent observational results, however, point to most PN actually being in binary systems. We…
Stripped stars are a common product of binary stellar systems and span a wide mass range from Wolf-Rayet stars to hot subdwarfs and helium white dwarfs. The recent discovery of intermediate-mass stripped stars, with masses between those of…
(Abridged) We develop a model for the cosmological role of mergers in the evolution of starbursts, quasars, and spheroidal galaxies. Combining halo mass functions (MFs) with empirical halo occupation models, we calculate where major…
Galaxy mergers are believed to play a key role in transforming star-forming disk galaxies into quenched ellipticals. Most of our theoretical knowledge about such morphological transformations does, however, rely on idealised simulations…
Recent simulation work has successfully captured the formation of the star clusters that have been observed in merging galaxies. These studies, however, tend to focus on studying extreme starbursts, such as the Antennae galaxies. We aim to…
The observational consequences of the merger scenario for massive star formation are explored and contrasted with the gradual accumulation of mass by accretion. Protostellar mergers may produce high luminosity infrared flares lasting years…
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…
Gravitational interactions and mergers are shaping and reshaping galaxies throughout the observable universe. While observations of interacting galaxies at low redshifts yield detailed information about the processes at work, observations…
Recent high-quality Hubble Space Telescope (HST) photometry shows that the main sequences (MS) stars of young star clusters form two discrete components in the color-magnitude diagram (CMD). Based on their distribution in the CMD, we show…
In the present review we discuss the past and present status of the interacting OB-type binary frequency. We critically examine the popular idea that Be-stars and supergiant sgB[e] stars are binary evolutionary products. The effects of…
Planetary nebulae are traditionally considered to represent the final evolutionary stage of all intermediate-mass stars ($\sim$0.7-8Msol). Recent evidence seems to contradict this picture. In particular, since the launch of the Hubble Space…
Blue stragglers are natural phenomena in star clusters. They originate through mass transfer in isolated binaries, as well as through encounters between two or more stars, in a complex interplay between stellar dynamics and stellar…
Massive stars are often born in triples, where gravitational dynamics and stellar interactions play a crucial role in shaping their evolution. One such pathway includes the merger of the inner binary, transforming the system to a binary…
Galaxy evolution depends strongly on the environment. Dynamical interactions and subsequent evolution make galaxies more concentrated, with higher surface densities, and also trigger star-formation, which consumes the available cold gas.…
The merger of two neutron stars is a very complex process. In order to disentangle the various steps through which it takes place it is mandatory to examine all the signals we can detect: gravitational waves and electromagnetic waves, in a…
We study the shape and evolution of the star formation main sequence in three independently developed semi-analytic models of galaxy formation. We focus, in particular, on the characterization of the model galaxies that are significantly…