Related papers: Dynamical binary interactions in the 2040s
Common-envelope events (CEEs), during which two stars temporarily orbit within a shared envelope, are believed to be vital for the formation of a wide range of close binaries. For decades, the only evidence that CEEs actually occur has been…
Observational studies suggest that many OB stars are found within binary systems which may be expected to interact during their lifetimes. Significant mass transfer or merger of both components will modify evolutionary pathways,…
The observational properties of core-collapse supernovae (CC-SNe) are shaped by the envelopes of their progenitors. In massive binary systems, mass-transfer alters the pre-SN structures compared to single stars, leading to a diversity in SN…
The structure of stellar envelopes strongly influences the course and outcome of binary mass transfer, in particular of common envelope (CE) evolution. Convective envelopes can most easily be ejected during CE events, leading to…
Relativistic transients such as gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), jetted tidal disruption events, luminous fast blue optical transients, and fast X-ray transients, represent the brightest explosions in the Universe and serve dual roles as…
Close, compact, hierarchical, multiple stellar systems, i.e., multiples having an outer orbital period from months to a few years, comprise a small, but continuously growing group of the triple and multiple star zoo. Many of them consist of…
It was recently demonstrated that contact binaries occur in globular clusters (GCs) only immediately below turn-off point and in the region of blue straggler stars (BSs). In addition, observations indicate that at least a significant…
Here we discuss the evolution of binaries around MBH in nuclear stellar clusters. We focus on their secular evolution due to the perturbation by the MBH, while simplistically accounting for their collisional evolution. Binaries with highly…
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…
At least one in five of all planetary nebulae are the product of a common envelope (CE) interaction, where the companion in-spirals into the envelope of an asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star ejecting the nebula and leaving behind a compact…
Opening up the dynamic infrared sky for systematic time-domain exploration would yield many scientific advances. Multi-messenger pursuits such as localizing gravitational waves from neutron star mergers and quantifying the nucleosynthetic…
A substantial fraction of stars can be found in wide binaries with projected separations between $\sim10^2$ and $10^5\,\rm AU$. In the standard lore of binary physics, these would evolve as effectively single stars that remotely orbit one…
We review the state of the evidence for the existence and observational appearance of supermassive black hole binaries. Such objects are expected from standard hierarchical galaxy evolution to form after two galaxies, each containing a…
Binarity and mass transfer appear to play a key role in the shaping and, possibly, formation of planetary nebulae (PNe), thereby explaining the large fraction of axisymmetric morphologies. I present the binary hypothesis for PNe and its…
With the first observation of a binary neutron star merger through gravitational waves and light GW170817, compact binary mergers have now taken the center stage in nuclear astrophysics. They are thought to be one of the main astrophysical…
We review the dramatic progress in the simulations of compact objects and compact-object binaries that has taken place in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. This includes simulations of the inspirals and violent mergers of…
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…
Blue stragglers have been found in all populations. These objects are important in both stellar evolution and stellar population synthesis. Much evidence shows that blue stragglers are relevant to primordial binaries. Here, we summarize the…
We compute the possible observational signatures of white dwarf dynamical interactions in dense stellar environments. Specifically, we compute the emission of gravitational waves, and we compare it with the sensitivity curves of planned…
Ultracompact Galactic binaries with orbital periods below an hour are among the strongest persistent gravitational-wave (GW) sources in the mHz band and will constitute the dominant population detected by the Laser Interferometer Space…