Related papers: Contact Binary Stars as Standard Candles
Close-binary central stars of planetary nebulae offer a unique tool with which to study the critical and yet poorly understood common-envelope phase of binary stellar evolution. Furthermore, as the nebula itself is thought to comprise the…
We apply the new generation of theoretical models of low-mass stars to secondaries in CVs, focussing on systems above the period gap. The models confirm that the spectral type should be a good indicator of the donor mass. The orbital…
We demonstrate that microlensing can be used for detecting planets in binary stellar systems. This is possible because in the geometry of planetary binary systems where the planet orbits one of the binary component and the other binary star…
The Kepler mission has provided high quality light curves for more than 2000 eclipsing binaries. Tertiary companions to these binaries can be detected if they transit one or both stars in the binary or if they perturb the binary enough to…
This work describes the analysis of 64 early-type, massive contact or near-contact eclipsing systems from the Large Magellanic Cloud discovered by the OGLE-III survey. It presents the determination of the period-luminosity-colour relation…
During the past 20 years, the idea that non-spherical planetary nebulae (PN) may need a binary or planetary interaction to be shaped was discussed by various authors. It is now generally agreed that the varied morphologies of PN cannot be…
Binaries are excellent astrophysical laboratories that provide us with direct measurements of fundamental stellar parameters. Compared to single isolated star, multiplicity induces new processes, offering the opportunity to confront our…
We report on a new method for tracking the phases of the orbital modulations in very short-period, near-contact, and contact binary systems systems in order to follow starspots. We apply this technique to Kepler light curves for 414 binary…
Binary stars are as common as single stars. Binary stars are of immense importance to astrophysicists because that they allow us to determine the masses of the stars independent of their distances. They are the cornerstone of the…
Detecting companions to Cepheids is difficult. In most cases the bright pulsator overshines the fainter secondary. Since Cepheids play a key role in determining the cosmic distance scale it is crucial to find binaries among the calibrating…
The properties of the early-type binary Cyg OB2 #5 have been debated for many years and spectroscopic and photometric investigations yielded conflicting results. We have attempted to constrain the physical properties of the binary by…
Distance measurements beyond geometrical and semi-geometrical methods, rely mainly on standard candles. As the name suggests, these objects have known luminosities by virtue of their intrinsic proprieties and play a major role in our…
The period distribution of contact binaries exhibits a very sharp short period cut-off at 0.22 days. In order to provide valuable information on this short period limit, we observed ten totally eclipsing contact binaries with orbital…
The Kepler Observatory offers unprecedented photometric precision (<1 mmag) and cadence for monitoring the central stars of planetary nebulae, allowing the detection of tiny periodic light curve variations, a possible signature of binarity.…
Strong encounters between single stars and binaries play a pivotal role in the evolution of star clusters. Such encounters can also dramatically modify the orbital parameters of binaries, exchange partners in and out of binaries, and are a…
Mass and radius measurements of stars are important inputs for models of stellar structure. Binary stars are of particular interest in this regard, because astrometry and spectroscopy of a binary together provide the masses of both stars as…
Given that mergers are often invoked to explain many exotic phenomena in massive star evolution, understanding the evolutionary phase directly preceding a merger, the overcontact phase, is of crucial importance. Despite its importance,…
Transiting planets manifest themselves by a periodic dimming of their host star by a fixed amount. On the other hand, light curves of transiting circumbinary (CB) planets are expected to be neither periodic nor to have a single depth while…
Many binary systems are in a state of strong interaction, where mass exchanges, accretion disks, common envelopes provide circumstellar matter which can have significant effects in microlensing light curves of background sources. Such…
Stellar fundamental properties (masses, radii, effective temperatures) can be extracted from observations of eclipsing binary systems with remarkable precision, often better than 2%. Such precise measurements afford us the opportunity to…