THE INCIDENCE OF STELLAR MERGERS AND MASS GAINERS AMONG MASSIVE STARS

By Selma de Mink, H. Sana, N. Langer, Robert G. Izzard, F. Schneider. 2013

210 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Because the majority of massive stars are born as members of close binary systems, populations of massive main-sequence stars contain stellar mergers and products of binary mass transfer. We simulate populations of massive stars accounting for all major binary evolution effects based on the most recent binary parameter statistics and extensively evaluate the effect of model uncertainties. Assuming constant star formation, we find that of a sample of early-type stars are the products of a merger resulting from a close binary system. In total we find that of massive main-sequence stars are the products of binary interaction. We show that the commonly adopted approach to minimize the effects of binaries on an observed sample by excluding systems detected as binaries through radial velocity campaigns can be counterproductive. Systems with significant radial velocity variations are mostly pre-interaction systems. Excluding them substantially enhances the relative incidence of mergers and binary products in the non-radial velocity variable sample. This poses a challenge for testing single stellar evolutionary models. It also raises the question of whether certain peculiar classes of stars, such as magnetic O stars, are the result of binary interaction and it emphasizes the need to further study the effect of binarity on the diagnostics that are used to derive the fundamental properties (star-formation history, initial mass function, mass-to-light ratio) of stellar populations nearby and at high redshift.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1281c26604abd11744cec0cb2c8d945b33d10acb

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Citations in the corpus

Massive runaway and walkaway stars (2018, methodology): “4), in good agreement with Sana et al. (2012), de Mink et al. (2014), Zapartas et al. (2017a,b); see also Kochanek et al. (2014).”
Luminous blue variables are antisocial: their isolation implies that they are kicked mass gainers in binary evolution (2014, background): “Both binary mass transfer and binary mergers will produce luminous stars that repopulate the upper main sequence (e.g., Langer & Kudritzki 2014; Langer 2012; Schneider et al. 2014; de Mink et al. 2014).”
Mind Your Ps and Qs: The Interrelation between Period (P) and Mass-ratio (Q) Distributions of Binary Stars (2016, methodology): “…if we limit our sample to systematically younger primaries with luminosity classes III-V (see §5 and §6), then we have adopted a slightly smaller correction factor Cevol ≈ 1.0 - 1.1. de Mink et al. (2014) report that 〈Fevol〉 = 30+10−15% of early-type systems are the products of binary interactions.”
MESA ISOCHRONES AND STELLAR TRACKS (MIST). I. SOLAR-SCALED MODELS (2016, background): “Multiplicity is extremely common among O- and B-type stars; binary mass exchange is believed to occur for & 70% of O-type stars and about a third of those stars will ultimately form a binary merger product (e.g., Chini et al. 2012; Sana et al. 2012, 2013; de Mink et al. 2014).”
THE EFFECTS OF STELLAR ROTATION. II. A COMPREHENSIVE SET OF STARBURST99 MODELS (2014, background): “Processes that occur during the evolution of binaries include envelope stripping from the binary, accretion of mass by the secondary, or even complete mergers (de Mink et al. 2014).”
The difficulty of getting high escape fractions of ionizing photons from high-redshift galaxies: A view from the FIRE cosmological simulations (2015, background): “Moreover, recent theoretical studies suggest that binary star interactions can produce ionizing photons in a stellar population older than 3 Myr; such events are not uncommon (e.g. de Mink et al. 2014).”
ELECTROMAGNETIC COUNTERPARTS TO BLACK HOLE MERGERS DETECTED BY LIGO (2016, background): “The stellar evolution of the merger product is significantly different from the standard evolution of an isolated star due to the chemical mixing and rapid rotation that result from the merger (de Mink et al. 2014; Hwang et al. 2015; Mandel & de Mink 2015).”
The VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey XXVII. Physical parameters of B-type main-sequence binary systems in the Tarantula nebula (2017, unknown): “For example, it appears that these closely bound systems binaries have not yet interacted through mass transfer, consistent with the predictions by de Mink et al. (2011, 2014).”
Delay-time distribution of core-collapse supernovae with late events resulting from binary interaction (2017, methodology): “In our simulations, contact results in merging of the stars as this is the most likely outcome (see also discussion by de Mink et al. 2014).”
Dawes Review 6: The Impact of Companions on Stellar Evolution (2016, background): “The prevalence of close binaries amongst massive stars (Kiminki & Kobulnicky, 2012; Sana et al., 2012a, Section 2.1) leads us to the inevitable conclusion that many will interact and merge (de Mink et al., 2014).”