Related papers: Composition Mixing during Blue Straggler Formation…
The early phase of the hydrodynamic evolution following collision of two stars is analyzed. Two strong shocks propagate at a constant velocity (which is a small fraction of the velocity of the approaching stars) from the contact surface…
Galactic nuclei are often found to contain young stellar populations and, in most cases, a central supermassive black hole (SMBH). Most known massive stars are found in binaries or higher-multiplicity systems, and in a galactic nucleus the…
(Abridged). Low metallicities, large gas-to-star mass ratios, and blue colors of most low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies imply that these systems may be younger than their high surface brightness counterparts. We seek to find…
Within the variety of objects populating stellar clusters, blue straggler stars (BSSs) are among the most puzzling ones. BSSs are commonly found in globular clusters, but they are also known to populate open clusters of the Milky Way. Two…
Rotation has become an important element in evolutionary models of massive stars, specifically via the prediction of rotational mixing. Here, we study a sample of stars, including rapid rotators, to constrain such models and use nitrogen…
[abridged] We present a unified picture for the evolution of star clusters on the two-body relaxation timescale. We use direct N-body simulations of star clusters in a galactic tidal field starting from different multi-mass King models, up…
We investigate the structure and evolution of blue stragglers stars which were formed from direct stellar collisions between main sequence stars in globular clusters. In particular, we look at the rotational evolution of the products of…
R Coronae Borealis (RCB) stars are rare hydrogen-deficient carbon-rich variable supergiants thought to be the result of dynamically unstable white dwarf mergers. We attempt to model RCBs through all the relevant timescales by simulating a…
We summarize the results of recent theoretical work on the dynamical evolution of globular clusters containing primordial binaries. Even a very small initial binary fraction (e.g., 10%) can play a key role in supporting a cluster against…
We present the first investigation of the Blue Straggler star (BSS) population in two isolated dwarf spheroidal galaxies of the Local Group, Cetus and Tucana. Deep HST/ACS photometry allowed us to identify samples of 940 and 1214…
To date, various formation channels of merging events have been heavily explored with the detection of nearly 100 double black hole (BH) merger events reported by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration. We here systematically investigate…
Mergers between red galaxies are observed to be common in the nearby Universe, and are thought to be the dominant mechanism by which massive galaxies grow their mass at late times. These ``dry'' mergers can be readily identified in very…
Blue compact galaxies (BCGs) are compact galaxies that are dominated by intense star formation. Comparing the observational properties with the predictions of stellar population synthesis model, we have analyzed the nuclear stellar…
Blue straggler stars (BSSs) are the most massive stars in a cluster formed via binary or higher-order stellar interactions. Though the exact nature of such formation scenarios is difficult to pin down, we provide observational constraints…
We analyze the evolution of colour gradients predicted by the hydrodynamical models of early type galaxies (ETGs) in Pipino et al. (2008), which reproduce fairly well the chemical abundance pattern and the metallicity gradients of local…
We present results of a Hubble Space Telescope far-ultraviolet (FUV) survey searching for white dwarf (WD) companions to blue straggler stars (BSSs) in open cluster NGC 188. The majority of NGC 188 BSSs (15 of 21) are single-lined binaries…
During most stages of stellar evolution the nuclear burning of lighter to heavier elements results in a radial composition profile which is stabilizing against buoyant acceleration, with light material residing above heavier material.…
We study the formation and evolution of several molecules in a collapsing interstellar cloud using a reasonably large reaction network containing more then four hundred atomic and molecular species. We employ a time dependent, spherically…
Even after elaborate investigations for 30 years, we still do not know well how the progenitor of SN 1987A has evolved. To explain unusual red-to-blue evolution, previous studies suggest that in a red giant stage either the increase of…
Stellar collisions can occur frequently in dense cluster environments, and play a crucial role in producing exotic phenomena from blue stragglers in globular clusters to high-energy transients in galactic nuclei. Successive collisions and…