AGB stars are responsible for producing a variety of elements, including carbon, nitrogen, and the heavy elements produced in the slow neutron-capture process ($s$-elements). There are many uncertainties involved in modelling the evolution and nucleo
synthesis of AGB stars, and this is especially the case at low metallicity, where most of the stars with high enough masses to enter the AGB have evolved to become white dwarfs and can no longer be observed. The stellar population in the Galactic halo is of low mass ($lesssim 0.85M_{odot}$) and only a few observed stars have evolved beyond the first giant branch. However, we have evidence that low-metallicity AGB stars in binary systems have interacted with their low-mass secondary companions in the past. The aim of this work is to investigate AGB nucleosynthesis at low metallicity by studying the surface abundances of chemically peculiar very metal-poor stars of the halo observed in binary systems. To this end we select a sample of 15 carbon- and $s$-element-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP-$s$) halo stars that are found in binary systems with measured orbital periods. With our model of binary evolution and AGB nucleosynthesis, we determine the binary configuration that best reproduces, at the same time, the observed orbital period and surface abundances of each star of the sample. The observed periods provide tight constraints on our model of wind mass transfer in binary stars, while the comparison with the observed abundances tests our model of AGB nucleosynthesis.
It is thought that type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are explosions of carbon-oxygen white dwarfs (CO WDs). Two main evolutionary channels are proposed for the WD to reach the critical density required for a thermonuclear explosion: the single degenerate s
cenario (SD), in which a CO WD accretes from a non-degenerate companion, and the double degenerate scenario (DD), in which two CO WDs merge. However, it remains difficult to reproduce the observed SN Ia rate with these two scenarios. With a binary population synthesis code we study the main evolutionary channels that lead to SNe Ia and we calculate the SN Ia rates and the associated delay time distributions. We find that the DD channel is the dominant formation channel for the longest delay times. The SD channel with helium-rich donors is the dominant channel at the shortest delay times. Our standard model rate is a factor five lower than the observed rate in galaxy clusters. We investigate the influence of ill-constrained aspects of single- and binary-star evolution and uncertain initial binary distributions on the rate of type Ia SNe. These distributions, as well as uncertainties in both helium star evolution and common envelope evolution, have the greatest influence on our calculated rates. Inefficient common envelope evolution increases the relative number of SD explosions such that for $alpha_{rm ce} = 0.2$ they dominate the SN Ia rate. Our highest rate is a factor three less than the galaxy-cluster SN Ia rate, but compatible with the rate determined in a field-galaxy dominated sample. If we assume unlimited accretion onto WDs, to maximize the number of SD explosions, our rate is compatible with the observed galaxy-cluster rate.
Many binary stellar systems in which the primary star is beyond the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) evolutionary phase show significant orbital eccentricities whereas current binary interaction models predict their orbits to be circularised. We analyse
how the orbital parameters in a system are modified under mass loss and mass exchange among its binary components and propose a model for enhanced mass-loss from the AGB star due to tidal interaction with its companion, which allows a smooth transition between the wind and Roche-lobe overflow mass-loss regimes. We explicitly follow its effect along the orbit on the change of eccentricity and orbital semi-major axis, as well as the effect of accretion by the companion. We calculate timescales for the variation of these orbital parameters and compare them to the tidal circularisation timescale. We find that in many cases, due to the enhanced mass loss of the AGB component at orbital phases closer to the periastron, the net eccentricity growth rate in one orbit is comparable to the rate of tidal circularisation. We show that with this eccentricity enhancing mechanism it is possible to reproduce the orbital period and eccentricity of the Sirius system, which under the standard assumptions of binary interaction is expected to be circularised. We also show that this mechanism may provide an explanation for the eccentricities of most barium star systems, which are expected to be circularised due to tidal dissipation. By proposing a tidally enhanced model of mass loss from AGB stars we find a mechanism which efficiently works against the tidal circularisation of the orbit, which explains the significant eccentricities observed in binary systems containing a white dwarf and a less evolved companion, such as Sirius and systems with barium stars.
