Friday, March 08, 2024 at 12:15-1:15 pm

JILA Foothills Room

Rachel Patton , The Ohio State University

"New tools for old problems: Understanding binary interaction in an era of large surveys and heavy computation"

Abstract:

Binary interaction changes the internal structure and global properties of the stars involved, but the frequency of, and the physical processes governing, these interactions remains unclear. I present two programs, one observational and one computational, to find, model, and evolve interacting binaries of all masses. On the observational front, I will first show how we can leverage poor quality APOGEE data to identify interacting red giants and then that the population of interacting low-mass giants is five times larger than previously thought. On the computational front, I will show the impact of different types of interaction on massive stellar structure, emphasizing the effects on the stars' ability to explode.

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