Course ASTR734 Spring 2008:  BINARY STARS - FORMATION AND EVOLUTION

Instructor: Bo Reipurth

Most stars in the Universe are binaries. This course will give an
overview of our current knowledge of binary and multiple stars, with
an emphasis on how binaries and multiples form and the properties of
young binaries. The following subjects will be discussed, among
others:

* Molecular cloud cores as the origin of binaries
* Turbulent fragmentation of cores
* The formation and stability of multiple stars
* Disintegrating triple systems and brown dwarf formation
* Herbig-Haro jets and orbital evolution of binaries
* Observations of pre-main sequence binaries
* Circumstellar and circumbinary disks
* Binary evolution leading to FUors and EXors
* Newborn spectroscopic and eclipsing binaries
* Companions: planets - brown dwarfs - stars
* Binaries as tests of pre-main sequence evolutionary tracks
* The most massive binaries and run-away stars
* Disruption of binaries in young clusters
* Orbital elements
* The separation-distribution function
* The three-body problem
* Roche lobes and mass transfer
* The end-stages of binaries

Software packages for analysis of binary data and orbits of multiple
stars will be made available.

For evaluation, students are requested to make one or two short oral
presentations during the course. Further, at the end of the course
students will each write one observing proposal on any topic from the
course. The class as a whole will form a TAC to evaluate all
proposals.

Lectures are 75 min each.

The course will start on thursday January 17 at 2:00 pm in the Fern Room