Related papers: Be/X-ray binaries: An observational approach
Transient X-ray binaries remain in their quiescent state for a long time (months to hundred years) and then bright up as the most powerful sources of the X-ray sky. While it is clear that, when in outbursts, transient binaries are powered…
The discovery of binaries in each of the major populations of minor bodies in the solar system is propelling a rapid growth of heretofore unattainable physical information. The availability of mass and density constraints for minor bodies…
Searches for planets in close binary systems explore the degree to which stellar multiplicity inhibits or promotes planet formation. There is a degeneracy between planet formation models when only systems with single stars are…
We review the properties of the variable X-ray emission from the extremely massive star Eta Carinae concentrating on the last X-ray minimum, and briefly consider the possible role of a binary companion star on the observational properties…
High-mass X-ray binaries are fundamental in the study of stellar evolution, nucleosynthesis, structure and evolution of galaxies and accretion processes. Hard X-rays observations by INTEGRAL and Swift have broad- ened significantly our…
The first half of the review dedicated to survey works on Be stars (Baade, Martayan, and Rivinius, this vol.) put emphasis on what we can learn from surveys about Be stars as a part of an environment, such as Be stars in binaries, Be stars…
Gamma-ray emitting binaries (GREBs) are complex systems. Its study became in the last years a major endeavour for the high-energy astrophysics community, both from an observational and a theoretical perspective. Whereas the accumulation of…
Massive stars feature highly energetic stellar winds that interact whenever two such stars are bound in a binary system. The signatures of these interactions are nowadays found over a wide range of wavelengths, including the radio domain,…
In the present paper we discuss a selection of facts and questions related to observations and evolutionary calculations of massive single stars and massive stars in interacting binaries. We focus on the surface chemical abundances, the…
The first results of radiative transfer calculations on decretion discs of binary Be stars are presented. A smoothed particle hydrodynamics code computes the structure of Be discs in coplanar circular binary systems for a range of orbital…
There are over 100 Be stars that are known to have neutron star companions but only one such system with a black hole. Previous theoretical work suggests this is not due to their formation but due to differences in X-ray luminosity. It has…
Close binary stars are binary stars where the component stars are close enough such that they can exchange mass and/or energy. They are subdivided into semi-detached, overcontact or ellipsoidal binary stars. A challenging problem in the…
With their relatively fast variability time-scales, Galactic X-ray binaries provide an excellent laboratory to explore the physics of accretion and related phenomena, most notably outflows, over different regimes. After comparing the…
Rotating axisymmetric objects amplify incoming waves by superradiant scattering. When enclosed in a cavity, the repeated interaction of a confined field with the object may trigger superradiant instabilities. Rotating binaries are…
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…
The observed luminosity distributions of X-ray sources indicate the presence of several populations of X-ray binaries in the nearby galaxies. Each population has its formation and evolutionary history, depending on the host environment. The…
Close binary central stars of planetary nebulae are key in constraining the poorly-understood common-envelope phase of evolution, which in turn is critical in understanding the formation of a wide-range of astrophysical phenomena (including…
The basic observed properties of neutron stars are reviewed. I suggest that neutron stars in low-mass X-ray binaries are the best of all known sites for testing strong-field effects of general relativity.
Knowledge of the orbits of visual binary stars has always been one of the fundamentals of astronomy. Based historically on the visual measures, nowadays the orbits rely more (or exclusively) on the accurate speckle data. This prompts…
A low mass X-ray binary (LMXB) contains either a neutron star or a black hole accreting materials from its low mass companion star. It is one of the primary astrophysical sources for studying the stellar size compact objects and the…