Related papers: Binaries as Astrophysical Laboratories: Open Quest…
A brief summary of properties of the contact binaries is presented, with the goal to stress the unsolved problems of their formation and evolution as well as their potential contribution to studies of Galactic stellar populations. The first…
The majority of all stars are members of a binary system. The evolution of such binary stars and their subsequent production of pairs of compact objects in tight orbits, such as double neutron stars and double black holes, play a central…
Spurred by the discovery of numerous exoplanets in multiple systems, binaries have become in recent years one of the main topics in planet formation research. Numerous studies have investigated to what extent the presence of a stellar…
Interacting binaries containing white dwarfs can lead to a variety of outcomes that range from powerful thermonuclear explosions, which are important in the chemical evolution of galaxies and as cosmological distance estimators, to strong…
Libraries of stellar spectra are fundamental tools in the study of stellar populations and in automatic determination of atmospheric parameters for large samples of observed stars. In the context of the present volume, here I give an…
While the number of stellar-mass black holes detected in X-rays or as gravitational wave sources is steadily increasing, the known population remains orders of magnitude smaller than predicted by stellar evolution theory. A significant…
Understanding the formation and evolution of the stellar-mass binary black holes discovered by LIGO and Virgo is a challenge that spans many areas of astrophysics, from stellar evolution, dynamics and accretion disks, to possible exotic…
Detached eclipsing binaries are very useful objects for calibrating theoretical stellar models and checking their predictions. Detached eclipsing binaries in open clusters are particularly important because of the additional constraints on…
The measured characteristics of binary pulsars provide valuable insights into the evolution of these systems. We study the aspects of binary evolution particularly relevant to binary Millisecond Pulsars (MSPs), and the formation of close…
Massive stars are key ingredients in the evolution of the Universe. Yet, important uncertainties and limits persist in our understanding of these objects, even in their early phases, limiting their application as tools to interpret the…
Most binaries are undetected. Astrometric reductions of a system using the assumption that the object moves like a single point mass can be biased by unresolved binary stars. The discrepancy between the centre of mass of the system (which…
The space experiment CoRoT will provide continuous monitoring and high accuracy light curves of about sixty thousand stars. Selected binary systems will be observed in the Additional Program frame as targets of long and continuous pointed…
Observations of exoplanets and protoplanetary disks show that binary stellar systems can host planets in stable orbits. Given the high binary fraction among stars, the contribution of binary systems to Galactic habitability should be…
Satellites of asteroids have been discovered in nearly every known small body population, and a remarkable aspect of the known satellites is the diversity of their properties. They tell a story of vast differences in formation and evolution…
Binary stars are common in star clusters and galaxies, but the detailed effects of binary evolution are not taken into account in some colour-magnitude diagram (CMD) studies. This paper studies the CMDs of twelve globular clusters via…
Planets are observed to orbit the component star(s) of stellar binary systems on so-called circumprimary or circumsecondary orbits, as well as around the entire binary system on so-called circumbinary orbits. Depending on the orbital…
The formation of massive stars is one of the major unsolved problems in stellar astrophysics. However, only few if any of these are found as single stars, on average massive stars have more than one companion. Many of them are born in dense…
Neutron stars in X-ray binary systems are fascinating objects that display a wide range of timing and spectral phenomena in the X-rays. Not only parameters of the neutron stars, like magnetic field strength and spin period evolve in their…
Galactic nuclei and globular clusters act as laboratories in which nature experiments with normal stars, neutron stars and black holes, through collisions and through the formation of bound states, in the form of binaries. The main…
Astronomers have come to recognize the benefits of photonics, often in combination with optical systems, in solving longstanding experimental problems in Earth-based astronomy. Here, we explore some of the recent advances made possible by…