No description available.

No description available.

It has become increasingly clear that many binary systems will pass through a common envelope stage at some point during their evolution. For short period systems composed of main-sequence 0 and early B stars this stage will probably occur for the first time towards the end of hydrogen-core burning in the primary component (case A evolution) rather than during the transition to the giant stage (case B evolution). If masses, radii, luminosities, temperatures and orbital parameters were well determined for a good sample of those systems, it could be established whether the individual components were so close that case A evolution was inevitable or whether the primary component had enough room to complete its main-sequence phase before reaching its Roche. limit and hence case B evolution. The latter mode has been studied extensively (both conservatively and non-conservatively) whereas the reception of matter by the secondary component in the rapid mass-transfer phase of case A evolution has only very recently been investigated. It is still one of the principal problems impeding further progress on this scenario. To resolve this situation and provide observational material with which to compare these theoretical models, an observing program was established to study systems of spectral type earlier than B5 and of orbital period of less than 1.8 in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Light curves were obtained at St Andrews using the newly-refurbished Twin Photometric Telescope and analysed using software developed specifically for this instrument. Further spectroscopic and photometric data were obtained at La Palma SAAO, Sierra Nevada and Boyden. Analyses of these spectroscopic and photometric observations have provided the necessary physical parameters to determine the evolutionary status of these systems. The systems observed were AH Cephei and V1182 Aquilae which are shown to be detached systems, TT Aurigae, SX Aurigae and AI Crucis which are all semi-detached systems and V701 Scorpii and HZ Pyxidis which are contact systems. Accurately-determined parameters of 14 stars have been found, including four 0 stars in detached systems. Therefore-the number of stars with well-determined masses of greater than 30M has been increased by 25%. It is clear from this study that case A mass transfer will play and has played an important role in the evolution of five out of the seven systems. It is debatable whether or not the contact systems have passed through a mass transfer phase, particularly RZ Pyx. The evolutionary history of this system is of particular interest, especially if this binary was in a marginal contact configuration when it arrived on the main sequence. Attempts have been made to look for intrinsic variability in these systems but no periodic variation has been found in any of them. If such a phenomenon exists in one of the components of the binaries in the sample then it must have an amplitude of less than 0.01. The comparison of the physical parameters of 67 stars compiled by the author from this work and from published data with theoretical zero-age and terminal-age main sequences shows that traditional modelling of semi-convection without mass loss is not adequate. Convective overshooting and mass loss play a very important role in the evolution of massive close binary systems of short period.

No description available.

Detection of the emission from the secondary component in a binary system can be extremely challenging, but equally rewarding. In the case of intermediate to high-mass binaries, detection of close companions can inform formation theories. In the extreme low mass-ratio case, where the secondary component is in fact a planet, detection of the emission in high resolution spectroscopy can be used to determine the true planet mass. In this thesis, we describe a technique to detect the thermal emission from the secondary component of a low mass-ratio binary system. We apply this technique to archived observations of early B-type stars using VLT/CRIRES, and simulate future observations of planetary systems with IGRINS, a near-infrared spectrograph being built now. / text

Theory and methods of processing speckle interferometry data from close visual binary stars are presented and implemented. The effects of the optical systems used for observing close visual binary stars are explained and simulated from both the geometrical and physical optical viewpoints. The atmospheric phase distortion and shot noise responsible for the observed speckle patterns are simulated. The deconvolution technique originally presented by Labeyrie is implemented to extract astrometric data from close visual binary stars. This method is applied to both simulated and experimental data from Kitt Peak National Observatory as validation. Parts of the deconvolution process are optimized to allow for near real time calculations in an automated observatory.

High Mass X-Ray Binary Stars (HMXBs) are stars that contain one early-type main sequence or giant star and one of a black hole, neutron star or white dwarf. HMXBs in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) are instructive to study because both galaxies are metal poor in compari- son to the Milky Way and they are fairly transparent to both optical and X-ray radiation. This allows a more complete study of the whole population, without the biasing effects of gas and dust that occur in our own Galaxy. The objective of this study was to find the periods of HMXBs in the LMC and SMC with known optical counterparts in the dataset acquired by the Robotic Optical Transient Search Ex- periment telescope. Two possible orbital periods were found for the objects XTE J0055-724 and RX J0101.3-7211 of 1724 days and 478 days, respectively. Continued observations are recommended to conrm the two periods.

High Mass X-Ray Binary Stars (HMXBs) are stars that contain one early-type main sequence or giant star and one of a black hole, neutron star or white dwarf. HMXBs in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) are instructive to study because both galaxies are metal poor in compari- son to the Milky Way and they are fairly transparent to both optical and X-ray radiation. This allows a more complete study of the whole population, without the biasing effects of gas and dust that occur in our own Galaxy. The objective of this study was to find the periods of HMXBs in the LMC and SMC with known optical counterparts in the dataset acquired by the Robotic Optical Transient Search Ex- periment telescope. Two possible orbital periods were found for the objects XTE J0055-724 and RX J0101.3-7211 of 1724 days and 478 days, respectively. Continued observations are recommended to conrm the two periods.

Les jeunes amas d'étoiles sont sous-structurés et évoluent dynamiquement pour former des amas sphériques à l'équilibre. Je présente une nouvelle méthode pour générer des conditions initiales réalistes pour simuler ce processus: la fragmentation de Hubble-Lemaitre. Je laisse le système développer spontanément des surdensités au cours d'une expansion du système. Le modèle résultant se compare bien aux simulations hydrodynamiques de formation stellaire et aux observations des jeunes amas. Le modèle fragmenté s'effondre de manière plus douce qu'un modèle uniforme. L'injection d'une population d'étoile binaire avant l'effondrement a montré qu'un système sous-structuré détruisait bien plus de binaires qu'un système à l'équilibre. Des binaires particulièrement larges ou serrées, jusqu’à 0.01 AU, ont également été détectées dans ces modèles. Cette méthode est très prometteuse, un exemple d'application est la génération d'observations synthétiques de régions de formation stellaire. / Young star clusters are substructured and undergo a dynamical evolution erasing this substructure to form relaxed spherical clusters. I present a new method to generate realistic initial conditions to perform N-body simulations of this process: the Hubble-Lemaitre fragmentation. By expanding an initially uniform sphere, I allow spontaneous overdensities to grow, creating a realistic model for young clumpy stellar systems. This method is validated by analysing the distribution and content of the clumps and comparing them to hydrodynamical simulations of star formation as well as observations of star forming regions. These systems undergo a softer collapse than uniform ones. I injected binary stars in the fragmented models and found they were heavily processed when substructure was present. I also found extreme short and tight binaries, down to 0.01 AU, to formin the models. The method has a lot of potential, such as the generation of mock observations of star-forming regions.

Yes / The field of mental health tends to treat its literary metaphors as literal realities with the concomitant loss of vague “feelings of tendency” in “unusual experiences”. I develop this argument through the prism of William James’ (1890) “The Principles of Psychology”. In the first part of the paper, I reflect upon the relevance of James’ “The Psychologist’s Fallacy” to a literary account of mental health. In the second part of the paper, I develop the argument that “connotations” and “feelings of tendency” are central to resolving some of the more difficult challenges of this fallacy. I proceed to do this in James’ spirit of generating imaginative metaphors to understand experience. Curiously, however, mental health presents a strange paradox in William James’ (1890) Principles of Psychology. He constructs an elaborate conception of the “empirical self” and “stream of thought” but chooses not to use these to understand unusual experiences – largely relying instead on the concept of a “secondary self.” In this article, I attempt to make more use of James’ central division between the “stream of thought” and the “empirical self” to understand unusual experiences. I suggest that they can be usefully understood using the loose metaphor of a “binary star” where the “secondary self” can be seen as an “accretion disk” around one of the stars. Understood as literary rather the literal, this metaphor is quite different to more unitary models of self-breakdown in mental health, particularly in its separation of “self” from “the stream of thought” and I suggest it has the potential to start a re-imagination of the academic discourse around mental health.