ITC Special Seminar - Maxwell Moe (Univ of Arizona)
Date and Time
June 27, 2018
01:30PM - 02:30PM EDT
Location
Pratt
"The Formation and Evolution of Close Binaries and Planets " Abstract: The formation and orbital migration of close binaries and planets remain a mystery. The majority of very close binaries have outer tertiary companions, suggesting Kozai-Lidov oscillations coupled with tidal friction play an important role in their dynamical evolution. However, close pre-main-sequence binaries are ubiquitous, indicating most close binaries migrated within a few Myr while there was still dissipative gas in the primordial disk. I will overview a new population synthesis model that incorporates more realistic initial conditions and a novel tidal mechanism to explain the formation of close binaries and hot Jupiters during the pre-main-sequence phase. The close binary fraction and Jovian planet occurrence rate both increase with stellar mass, providing insights into their respective formation processes. Although planets may favor metal-rich hosts, recent observations demonstrate the close binary fraction dramatically increases toward lower metallicities. I will discuss five different observational techniques that corroborate this metallicity trend and outline a fragmentation model that reproduces the observations. I will also highlight the implications for Type Ia supernovae, mergers of compact remnants, and biases in the inferred planet statistics.