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Published April 1, 1977 | Published
Journal Article Open

On formation of close binaries by two-body tidal capture

Abstract

We calculate in detail the two-body tidal capture mechanism of Fabian, Pringle, and Rees: when two unbound stars have a close encounter, they may become bound by the energy that each deposits into nonradial oscillations of the other. After dimensional scalings are removed, the process depends only on a single dimensionless parameter, and on the dimensionless envelope structure of the stars. General formulae are derived; for definiteness, we apply them to the specific case of stars with an n = 3 polytropic structure. Capture cross sections as a function of velocity and capture rates for an isothermal distribution are given for the case of equal-mass stars; other cases can easily be computed from the formulae given.

Additional Information

© 1977 The American Astronomical Society. Provided by the NASA Astrophysics Data System. Supported in part by the National Science Foundation [PHY 76-14852] at Harvard University, and [PHY 76-07297] at Cornell University; also by grant [GP-30799X] at Princeton University. Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow.

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August 19, 2023
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