Stellar duplicity and nucleosynthesis
Abstract
Half or more of all stars more massive than our Sun are orbited by one (or more) companion stars. Many companions are close enough that the evolution of both stars is greatly altered by the transfer of mass and angular momentum from one star to the other. Such mass transfer is highly likely during the late stages of evolution, such as on the giant branches, which are quite coincidentally also when stars undergo interesting nucleosynthesis. Direct mass transfer truncates the (A)GB prematurely compared to single stars and the ensuing stellar envelope is ejected perhaps to form a (chemically peculiar?) planetary nebula. In wider binaries, where one star has captured material from a long-dead companion, we can probe the nucleosynthesis that happened in ancient stars as well as fundamental astrophysical phenomena like wind accretion and circumbinary disc formation. I will focus on recent quantitative work on nucleosynthesis in mass-transfer systems, such as carbon-enhanced metal-poor and barium stars, and highlight some of the key open questions - and opportunities - that will dominate the next decade of duplicitous nucleosynthesis.
- Publication:
-
Binary Systems, their Evolution and Environments
- Pub Date:
- September 2014
- Bibcode:
- 2014bsee.confE..10I