Stars Squared: Evolution of Binary Stars (MVSpec)

Many stars are not born single but have companions. About every second solar-like star has at least one companion, while massive stars are hardly found to be single. This has interesting consequences for the evolution and final fates of stars. This course provides a comprehensive overview of the most relevant processes in binary star evolution, including tides, binary mass transfer, common-envelope evolution, stellar mergers, the formation of compact objects, and gravitational-wave mergers. 
A recap of the essentials of single-star evolution needed in this course will be given. 
The course consists mostly of blackboard-style lectures assisted by hands-on Python examples and multimedia presentations. Homework problems are discussed in a 1-hour tutorial immediately after the weekly 2-hour lectures.

Pre-requisites: A basic understanding of single star evolution is assumed, e.g. obtained through the lectures ‘The Stellar Cookbook: A practical guide to the theory of stars’ or ‘Stellar Astrophysics’ or equivalent.