Big Stars and Their Little Friends - Morgan MacLeod - 04/26/2023

This is a high-level research talk designed for professional astronomers. It is part of the Caltech Astronomy Colloquium Series, hour-long presentations given weekly by top scientists from around the world to the members of our department. All are welcome to watch these colloquium presentations; however, for talks specifically designed for the general public, please see our Caltech Astro Outreach channel:    / caltechastro  . Timestamps and abstract are included below.

Date: 04/26/23
Speaker: Morgan MacLeod, CFA Harvard University
Title: Big Stars and Their Little Friends

Abstract : Today's talk will discuss two examples of stellar evolution interrupted by close companion objects. Most of stellar lifetimes are spent undergoing gentle evolution on the nuclear timescale of millions to billions of years. But there are more dramatic, transient episodes that occur when stars have close companions. In these cases, we have the privilege of seeing these stars transformed on timescales as short as days in the time-domain night sky. I'll tell the stories of a binary star with tides so extreme that they break after every peripase passage of the system's eccentric orbit, and of a star caught in the act of swallowing its close-in planetary companion.