Protostars and Planets VI, Heidelberg, July 15-20, 2013

Poster 1K079

BINARY POPULATION EVOLUTION

Korntreff, Christina (Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH)
Arnold, Lukas (Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH)
Pfalzner, Susanne (Max-Plank-Institut für Radioastronomie, Bonn)

Abstract:
The binary population of a young stellar cluster is influenced by two important dynamical processes: i) gas-induced orbital decay of embedded binary systems and ii) destruction of soft (wide) binaries in three-body interactions. The presented work focuses on the process of orbital decay, which has been largely neglected so far. In 2011 Stahler calculated, that a binary system in it’s natal gas might merge within 1 Myr due to gas-induced orbital decay. Using hydrodynamic simulations, we extended his work for circular orbits to eccentric orbits and investigated the effects of this process onto a binary population in a model star cluster. This allows to describe how a the stars and gas constituting a forming cluster process the binary populations from their initial state to that of the field star population. Conclusions concerning the initial period distributions are discussed.

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