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Dawes Review 6: The Impact of Companions on Stellar Evolution

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

De Marco, O 
Izzard, RG 

Abstract

Astrophysicists are increasingly taking into account the effects of orbiting companions on stellar evolution. New discoveries have underlined the role of binary star interactions in a range of astrophysical events, including some that were previously interpreted as being due uniquely to single stellar evolution. We review classical binary phenomena, such as type Ia supernovae, and discuss new phenomena, such as intermediate luminosity transients, gravitational wave-producing double black holes, and the interaction between stars and their planets. Finally, we reassess well-known phenomena, such as luminous blue variables, in light of interpretations that include both single and binary stars. At the same time we contextualise the new discoveries within the framework of binary stellar evolution. The last decade has seen a revival in stellar astrophysics as the complexity of stellar observations is increasingly interpreted with an interplay of single and binary scenarios. The next decade, with the advent of massive projects such as the Square Kilometre Array, the James Webb Space Telescope, and increasingly sophisticated computational methods, will see the birth of an expanded framework of stellar evolution that will have repercussions in many other areas of astrophysics such as galactic evolution and nucleosynthesis.

Description

Keywords

stars: binaries: close, stars: evolution, ISM: jets and outflows, methods: numerical, surveys

Journal Title

Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1323-3580
1448-6083

Volume Title

34

Publisher

Cambridge University Press
Sponsorship
Science and Technology Facilities Council (ST/L003910/1)
OD would like to thank the Australian Research Council’s Future Fellowship Programme via grant FT120100452. RGI thanks the UK Science, Technology and Facilities Council for supporting his Rutherford Fellowship, grant number ST/L003910/1.