event
Wednesday 27 Jan 2021: Stellar interactions & transients
Silvia Toonen - University of Birmingham
Remote seminar 14:00-15:00
Stars are the fundamental building blocks of galaxies and stellar clusters. They are often part of small stellar systems, such as binaries and triples in which the stars can interact with each other. These interactions give rise to some of the most energetic events in the universe, e.g. supernovae Type Ia explosions and gravitational wave sources.
The advent and development of large-scale time domain surveys are revealing the existence of a large and diverse zoo of transients, but their origin or progenitor evolution is often unknown. Here, I will present our latest results regarding the evolution of white dwarf binaries and their mergers, with implications for Galactic archaeology.
Secondly, I will focus on the evolution of triple star systems, their evolution, interactions and resulting transients. Even though the principles of binary evolution theory have been accepted for a long time, the evolution of triples is an uncharted territory. There is a need to understand the evolution of triples, as they are common and often invoked to explain compact and exotic binaries.
