Abstract
AbstractField stars are frequently formed in pairs, and many of these binaries are part of triples or even higher-order systems. Even though, the principles of single stellar evolution and binary evolution, have been accepted for a long time, the long-term evolution of stellar triples is poorly understood. The presence of a third star in an orbit around a binary system can significantly alter the evolution of those stars and the binary system. The rich dynamical behaviour in three-body systems can give rise to Lidov-Kozai cycles, in which the eccentricity of the inner orbit and the inclination between the inner and outer orbit vary periodically. In turn, this can lead to an enhancement of tidal effects (tidal friction), gravitational-wave emission and stellar interactions such as mass transfer and collisions. The lack of a self-consistent treatment of triple evolution, including both three-body dynamics as well as stellar evolution, hinders the systematic study and general understanding of the long-term evolution of triple systems. In this paper, we aim to address some of these hiatus, by discussing the dominant physical processes of hierarchical triple evolution, and presenting heuristic recipes for these processes. To improve our understanding on hierarchical stellar triples, these descriptions are implemented in a public source code , which combines three-body dynamics (based on the secular approach) with stellar evolution and their mutual influences. Note that modelling through a phase of stable mass transfer in an eccentric orbit is currently not implemented in , but can be implemented with the appropriate methodology at a later stage.
Highlights
The majority of stars are members of multiple systems
5 Discussion and conclusion In this paper, we discuss the principle complexities of the evolution of hierarchical triple star systems
Hierarchical triples are fairly common and potentially long-lived, which allows for their evolution to be affected by threebody dynamics, stellar evolution and their mutual influences
Summary
The majority of stars are members of multiple systems. These include binaries, triples, and higher order hierarchies. We start with a brief summary of single star evolution with a focus on those aspects that are relevant for binary and triple evolution. 2.1 Single stellar evolution Hydrostatic and thermal equilibrium in a star give rise to temperatures and pressures that allow for nuclear burning, and the emission of the starlight that we observe. The evolution of a star is predominantly determined by a single parameter, namely the stellar mass (Table ). It depends only slightly on the initial chemical composition or the amount of core overshooting.a
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