Binary interaction dominates the evolution of massive stars

Abstract

The presence of a nearby companion alters the evolution of massive stars in binary systems, leading to phenomena such as stellar mergers, X-ray binaries and gamma-ray bursts. Unambiguous constraints on the fraction of massive stars affected by binary interaction were lacking. We simultaneously measured all relevant binary characteristics in a sample of Galactic massive O stars and quantified the frequency and nature of binary interactions. Over seventy per cent of all massive stars will exchange mass with a companion, leading to a binary merger in one third of the cases. These numbers greatly exceed previous estimates and imply that binary interaction dominates the evolution of massive stars, with implications for populations of massive stars and their supernovae.

9 page, 2 figures. This is the authors' version. Final version and supplementary materials available at http://www.sciencemag.org

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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Population synthesis of ultracompact X-ray binaries in the Galactic Bulge
• The binary merger channel for the progenitor of the fastest rotating O-type star VFTS102
• Complex orbital dynamics of a double neutron star system revolving around a massive black hole