Related papers: Close Pairs as Probes of the Galaxy's Chemical Evo…
Understanding the galaxy in which we live is one of the great intellectual challenges facing modern science. With the advent of high quality observational data, the chemical evolution modeling of our galaxy has been the subject of numerous…
Binary stars are pairs of stars that are gravitationally bound, providing in some cases accurate measurements of their masses and radii. As such, they serve as excellent testbeds for the theory of stellar structure and evolution. Moreover,…
Recent models of galactic chemical evolution account for updated evolutionary models of massive stars (with special emphasis on stellar winds) and for the effects of intermediate mass and massive binaries. The results are summarised. We…
In this paper we compute the time evolution of the elements (4He, 12C, 14N, 16O, 20Ne, 24Mg, 28Si, 32S, 40Ca and 56Fe) and of the supernova rates in the solar neighbourhood by means of a galactic chemical evolutionary code that includes in…
A population number synthesis code follows in detail the evolution of a population of single stars and of close binaries. We use our code to simulate the population of neutron star - neutron star and black hole - neutron star binaries. We…
Context. The chemical processes during the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) evolution of intermediate mass single stars predict most of the observations of the different populations in globular clusters although some important issues still…
In this review I first summarize why binaries are key objects in the study of stellar populations, key objects to understand the evolution of star clusters, key objects to understand galaxies and thus the universe. I then focus on 4…
The chemical processes during the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) evolution of intermediate mass single stars predict most of the observations of the different populations in Globular Clusters although some important issues still need to be…
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…
Supernova rates (hypernova, type II, type Ib/c and type Ia) in a particular galaxy depend on the metallicity (i.e. on the galaxy age), on the physics of star formation and on the binary population. In order to study the time evolution of…
Stellar members of binary systems are formed from the same material, therefore they should be chemically identical. However, recent high-precision studies have unveiled chemical differences between the two members of binary pairs composed…
Massive stars play a major role in the evolution of their host galaxies, and serve as important probes of the distant Universe. It has been established that the majority of massive stars reside in close binaries and will interact with their…
The determination of chemical abundances in star-forming galaxies and the study of their evolution on cosmological timescales are powerful tools for understanding galaxy formation and evolution. This contribution presents the latest results…
Nearby companions alter the evolution of massive stars in binary systems. Using a sample of Galactic massive stars in nearby young clusters, we simultaneously measure all intrinsic binary characteristics relevant to quantify the frequency…
The presence of a nearby companion alters the evolution of massive stars in binary systems, leading to phenomena such as stellar mergers, X-ray binaries and gamma-ray bursts. Unambiguous constraints on the fraction of massive stars affected…
The increase in discovered close binary central stars of planetary nebulae is leading to a sufficiently large sample to begin to make broader conclusions about the effect of close binary stars on common envelope evolution and planetary…
Galactic globular clusters are old, dense star systems typically containing 10\super{4}--10\super{7} stars. As an old population of stars, globular clusters contain many collapsed and degenerate objects. As a dense population of stars,…
Since stellar populations enhance particular element abundances according to the yields and lifetimes of the stellar progenitors, the chemical evolution of galaxies serves as one of the key tools that allows the tracing of galaxy evolution.…
Neutron stars and stellar-mass black holes are the remnants of massive stars, which ended their lives in supernova explosions. These exotic objects can only be studied in relatively rare cases. If they are interacting with close companions…
The complexity of composite spectra of close binaries makes the study of the individual stellar spectra extremely difficult. For this reason there exists very little information on the chemical composition of high-mass stars in close…