ON THE TRIPLE ORIGIN OF BLUE STRAGGLERS

By H. Perets, D. Fabrycky. 2009

155 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Blue straggler stars (BSSs) are stars observed to be hotter and bluer than other stars with the same luminosity in their environment. As such they appear to be much younger than the rest of the stellar population. Two main channels have been suggested to produce such stars: (1) collisions between stars in clusters or (2) mass transfer between, or merger of, the components of primordial short-period binaries. Here we suggest a third scenario, in which the progenitors of BSSs are formed in primordial (or dynamically formed) hierarchical triple stars. In such configurations, the dynamical evolution of the triples through the Kozai mechanism and tidal friction can induce the formation of very close inner binaries. Angular momentum loss in a magnetized wind or stellar evolution could then lead to the merger of these binaries (or to mass transfer between them) and produce BSSs in binary (or triple) systems. We study this mechanism and its implications and show that it could naturally explain many of the characteristics of the BSS population in clusters, most notably the large binary fraction of long-period BSS binaries; their unique period–eccentricity distribution (with typical periods > 700 days); and the typical location of these BSSs in the color–magnitude diagram, far from the cluster turnoff point of their host clusters. We suggest that this scenario has a major (possibly dominant) role in the formation of BSSs in open clusters and give specific predictions for the BSSs population formed in this manner. We also note that triple systems may be the progenitors of the brightest planetary nebulae in old elliptical galaxies, which possibly evolved from BSSs.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Education, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1504ca2b1bcd9e6fcc4db0ea27978a6200acf178

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. F. Antonini
2. S. Naoz
3. F. Rasio
4. B. Kocsis
5. Michela Mapelli
6. Robert G. Izzard
7. Joseph M. Antognini
8. Selma de Mink

In Education

1. S. Naoz
2. Joseph M. Antognini
3. T. Thompson
4. F. Antonini
5. Y. Lithwick
6. F. Rasio
7. C. Clarke
8. N. Murray

In Instrumentation

1. F. Rasio
2. Robert G. Izzard
3. Selma de Mink
4. S. Naoz
5. F. Antonini
6. T. Thompson
7. N. Langer
8. H. Sana

Citations in the corpus

• The evolution of hierarchical triple star-systems (2016, background): “, 2010), blue stragglers (Perets and Fabrycky, 2009), and supernova type Ia progenitors (Hamers et al.”
• THE INCIDENCE OF STELLAR MERGERS AND MASS GAINERS AMONG MASSIVE STARS (2013, background): “In addition, mergers may be triggered by dynamical interactions between three bodies systems (e.g. Kozai 1962; Perets & Fabrycky 2009; Hamers et al. 2013) or as a result of (multiple) collisions in dense star clusters (Portegies Zwart et al. 2004; Glebbeek et al. 2009) or near the galactic center…”
• Timescales of Kozai-Lidov oscillations at quadrupole and octupole order in the test particle limit (2015, background): “…hot Jupiters (Wu & Murray 2003; Wu et al. 2007; Fabrycky & Tremaine 2007; Naoz et al. 2011, 2012; Petrovich 2015), the formation of blue stragglers (Perets & Fabrycky 2009; Naoz & Fabrycky 2014), the merger of WD-WD binaries (Thompson 2011; Katz et al. 2011), the merger of supermassive and…”
• ACCELERATING COMPACT OBJECT MERGERS IN TRIPLE SYSTEMS WITH THE KOZAI RESONANCE: A MECHANISM FOR “PROMPT” TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE, GAMMA-RAY BURSTS, AND OTHER EXOTICA (2010, background): “…action of tidal friction and Kozai oscillations on the period distrbution of solar-type binaries in triple systems has been considered in detail by FT07 (see also Mazeh & Shaham 1979; Kiseleva et al. 1998; Eggleton & Kiseleva-Eggleton 2001; Wu & Murray 2003; Wu et al. 2007; Perets & Fabrycky 2009).”
• The Eccentric Kozai-Lidov Effect and Its Applications (2016, background): “Perets and Fabrycky (2009) envisioned a two-step process for which triple body interactions can form blue stragglers.”
• ECCENTRICITY GROWTH AND ORBIT FLIP IN NEAR-COPLANAR HIERARCHICAL THREE-BODY SYSTEMS (2013, background): “, Type 1a supernovae (Katz & Dong 2012), star-star collisions (e.g. Perets & Fabrycky (2009); Thompson (2011); Katz & Dong (2012); Shappee & Thompson (2013); Naoz et al. (2013a); Naoz & Fabrycky (submitted)) and gravitational wave sources (O’Leary et al. 2009; Kocsis & Levin 2012).”
• Merging Binaries in the Galactic Center: The eccentric Kozai-Lidov mechanism with stellar evolution (2016, background): “A similar argument was raised for the blue stragglers population (Perets & Fabrycky 2009; Naoz & Fabrycky 2014).”
• Spectroscopic study of early-type multiple stellar systems - II. New binary subsystems (2014, background): “Moreover, it can be speculated that this blue-straggler could have had origin in the merger of the components of a close binary as a result of the influence of a third companion through Kozai cycles and tidal friction (see Section 4) (Perets & Fabrycky 2009).”
• Suppression of extreme orbital evolution in triple systems with short-range forces (2014, background): “E P] 2 3 Se p 20 14 2007; Perets & Fabrycky 2009; Shappee & Thompson 2013; Naoz & Fabrycky 2014); (ii) The excitation of eccentricities of exoplanet systems (e.g., Holman, Touma, & Tremaine 1997; Innanen et al. 1997; Mazeh et al. 1997) and the formation of hot Jupiters through high-eccentricity…”
• BLACK HOLE MERGERS AND BLUE STRAGGLERS FROM HIERARCHICAL TRIPLES FORMED IN GLOBULAR CLUSTERS (2015, background): “…a channel for the formation of compact-object mergers (Miller & Hamilton 2002; Wen 2003; Arca-Sedda 2016), and more recently as a channel for the formation of BSSs through mass transfer and merger (Perets & Fabrycky 2009; Leigh & Sills 2011; Geller et al. 2013; Naoz & Fabrycky 2014; Perets 2015).”
• RESONANT POST-NEWTONIAN ECCENTRICITY EXCITATION IN HIERARCHICAL THREE-BODY SYSTEMS (2012, background): “…an important element in the evolution of triple stars (e.g., Harrington 1969; Mazeh & Shaham 1979; Kiseleva et al. 1998; Fabrycky & Tremaine 2007; Perets & Fabrycky 2009; Thompson 2010; Naoz et al. 2013; Prodan & Murray 2012; Sharpee & Thompson 2012) and extrasolar planetary systems with an…”
• BLACK HOLE TRIPLE DYNAMICS: A BREAKDOWN OF THE ORBIT AVERAGE APPROXIMATION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR GRAVITATIONAL WAVE DETECTIONS (2013, background): “This author finds that the conditions for BH binary mergers in GCs are typically initiated by a combination of GW energy loss and the Kozai resonance induced by the presence of a third object, usually another BH.”
• Mind Your Ps and Qs: The Interrelation between Period (P) and Mass-ratio (Q) Distributions of Binary Stars (2016, background): “Close tertiaries can induce Kozai oscillations and may cause the inner binary to merge while still on the MS, thereby producing a blue straggler (Perets & Fabrycky 2009).”
• MOCCA code for star cluster simulations – IV. A new scenario for intermediate mass black hole formation in globular clusters (2015, background): “…of a distant third companion could reduce the tim - scale for a subsequent encounter, increase the collision probability during individual encounters (Leigh & Geller 2012) or even drive the inner binary to shorter periods or even merge due to KozaiLidov oscillations (Perets & Fabrycky 2009).”
• Unresolved stellar companions with Gaia DR2 astrometry (2020, background): “Finally, the third scenario invokes a parent triple system in which the Kozai–Lidov mechanism pushes the inner binary to undergo Roche lobe overflow and possibly merge (Perets & Fabrycky 2009).”
• Secular Dynamics in Hierarchical Three-Body Systems (2011, methodology): “The possibility of forming blue stragglers through secular interactions in triple star systems has been suggested by Perets and Fabrycky (2009) and Geller et al. (2011).”
• Rapid Eccentricity Oscillations and the Mergers of Compact Objects in Hierarchical Triples (2013, background): “…in the Solar System (Kozai 1962), the orbits of artificial satellites around planets in the Solar System (Lidov 1962), as a formation channel for hot Jupiters (e.g., Wu & Murray 2003; Fabrycky & Tremaine 2007; Wu et al. 2007), and as a formation channel for blue stragglers (Perets & Fabrycky 2009).”
• SECULAR EVOLUTION OF COMPACT BINARIES NEAR MASSIVE BLACK HOLES: GRAVITATIONAL WAVE SOURCES AND OTHER EXOTICA (2012, background): “Perets & Fabrycky (2009) suggested that such process can induce mergers of binary stars and the formation of blue stragglers.”