Article contents
Detached Main-Sequence Binaries: A Laboratory for the Study of Stellar Structure
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2017
Abstract
Our knowledge of the evolutionary processes taking place in interacting binary stars is based primarily in our understanding of the stellar structure and evolution of single stars. The determination of absolute dimensions in close doble-lined eclipsing binaries, with well-detached components, is the best empirical approach available into stellar structure.
Important physical parameters and processes can be studied in some detail within the framework of detached main-sequence binaries, e.g., initial chemical composition, the mixing-length ratio, the relevance of convective overshooting, interactions between matter and radiation in the stellar interior, the concentration of mass towards the center of the stars or the response of stellar envelopes to tidal influences by an external gravitational potential.
A combination of observational results from photometry and spectroscopy are used to obtain relevant stellar parameters: absolute dimensions, ages, chemical composition, apsidal motion rate, degree of synchronization and circularization, etc., and a comparison with theoretical models allow us to derive some information about the above mentioned physical mechanisms.
- Type
- Invited Papers
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Kluwer 1992
References
- 1
- Cited by