Numerical Experiments on the Decay of Three-Body Systems

Abstract

AbstractNumerical results are presented for calculations of stellar three-body systems. Among the triple systems with similar initial separations between each of the stars, the equal-mass systems are most stable with typical half-lives of about 40 crossing times. In the other extreme, systems with a very small total angular momentum or a large mass difference have half-lives of only about 10 crossing times. The escaping star is usually the lightest one, while the escape probability for the heaviest star approaches zero when its mass exceeds the combined mass of the other two stars by more than a factor of about 5. The final binary becomes very eccentric (ē ≳ 0.8) when the three stars are restricted to a plane and do not have a very high total angular momentum, or when the total angular momentum is very small.