Related papers: The primordial binary population in the associatio…
We have extended our detailed survey of the local white dwarf population from 20 pc to 25 pc, effectively doubling the sample volume, which now includes 232 stars. In the process new stars within 20 pc have been added, a more uniform set of…
The masses of compact objects like white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes are fundamental to astrophysics, but very difficult to measure. We present the results of an analysis of subluminous B (sdB) stars in close binary systems with…
The origin of subluminous B stars is still an unsolved problem in stellar evolution. Single star as well as close binary evolution scenarios have been invoked but until now have met with little success. We have carried out a small survey of…
A large number of direct imaging surveys for exoplanets have been performed in recent years, yielding the first directly imaged planets and providing constraints on the prevalence and distribution of wide planetary systems. However, like…
Virtually all known exoplanets reside around stars with $M<2.3~M_\odot$; to clarify if the dearth of planets around more massive stars is real, we launched the direct-imaging B-star Exoplanet Abundance STudy (BEAST) survey targeting B stars…
We present an initial-final mass relation derived from the spectroscopically-complete volume-limited 40 pc sample of white dwarfs. The relation is modelled using population synthesis methods to derive an initial stellar population which can…
Binarity and multiplicity appear to be a common outcome in star formation. In particular, the binary fraction of massive (OB-type) stars can be very high. In many cases, the further stellar evolution of these stars is affected by binary…
We analyze the spatial distributions of young stars in Taurus-Auriga and Upper Sco as determined from the two-point correlation function (i.e. the mean surface density of neighbors). The corresponding power-law fits allow us to determine…
We show that the dearth of brown dwarfs in short-period orbits around Solar-mass stars - the brown dwarf desert - can be understood as a consequence of inward migration within an evolving protoplanetary disc. Brown dwarf secondaries forming…
Massive stars that lose their hydrogen-rich envelope down to a few tenths of a solar mass explode as extended type IIb supernovae, an intriguing subtype that links the hydrogen-rich type II supernovae with the hydrogen-poor type Ib and Ic.…
Observational evidence has continued to mount that a significant fraction of rapidly rotating early-B type stars are products of binary mass transfer. However, very few mid- and late-type B stars with rapid rotation have been demonstrated…
We report the discovery of 24 spectroscopic binary companions to giant stars. We fully constrain the orbital solution for 6 of these systems. We cannot unambiguously derive the orbital elements for the remaining stars because the phase…
Context. The fraction of field binaries on retrograde orbits about the Milky Way is significantly lower compared to its prograde counterpart. Chemical and dynamical evidence suggests that the retrograde stellar population originates from…
Observations and theory suggest that star clusters can form in a subvirial (cool) state and are highly substructured. Such initial conditions have been proposed to explain the level of mass segregation in clusters through dynamics, and have…
We present results of a high angular resolution survey of massive OB stars in the Cygnus OB2 association that we conducted with the NIRI camera and ALTAIR adaptive optics system of the Gemini North telescope. We observed 74 O- and early…
Over the past few decades, numerous wide (>1000 au) binaries in the Galactic field and halo have been discovered. Their existence cannot be explained by the process of star formation or by dynamical interactions in the field, and their…
Multiplicity is ubiquitous among massive stars. While the stellar components usually display similar masses, some binaries with extremely low mass ratios were also observed. Some of them are primordial, while others arise from binary…
We study a sample of spectroscopic binaries (SBs) in the local solar neighbourhood to 100 pc and to an absolute magnitude of 4 in an attempt to find the distributions of the period, primary mass and the mass ratio as well as the IMF of the…
We present results from high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations which explore the effects of small scale clustering in star-forming regions. A large ensemble of small-N clusters with 5 stellar seeds have been modelled and the resulting…
Context. Cygnus OB2, in the Cygnus X complex -- one of the most active star-forming regions of the Galaxy -- hosts hundreds of O- and B-type stars at different evolutionary stages. This association provides a unique laboratory to study…