Course content:

The course will provide the necessary understanding of the physics of binary stars with black holes, neutron stars and white dwarfs, mass-transfer, chemistry and the importance of binary stars and populations of binaries to modern astrophysics.

Theoretical and practical considerations will be supplemented with the home exercises which constitute the important part of the course.

Literature:

• All the slides from the course (slightly resorted).
• Interacting Binary Stars (1985) – Edited by J.E. Pringle and R.A. Wade / CUP. ISBN 0 521 26608 4.
• Cataclysmic Variable Stars (2003) – Brian Warner / CUP. ISBN 0 521 54209 X.
• Accretion Power in Astrophysics (3rd edition, 2003) – J. Frank, A. King and D. Raine / CUP. ISBN 0 521 62957 8.
• Cataclysmic Variable Stars – How and Why They Vary (2001) – Coel Hellier / Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 1852332115.

I will also give references to original papers where useful.

Schedule

• Lecture 1: October 26: Introduction: Binary Stars and Fundamental Stellar Parameters

  PDF

• Lecture 2: October 28: How does mass transfer occur? Roche lobe and Roche-Lobe overflow. Accretion Disks. Formation of an Accretion Disk.

  PDF * Link to FITDisk
  

• Lecture 3: November 02: Energetics of accretion. Accretion disk properties.

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• Lecture 4: November 05: The angular momentum problem. Viscous accretion disks. Accretion Disk Temperature Structure. Accretion Disk Spectrum.

  PDF [Updated again]

• Lecture 5: November 09: Accretion Disk: Surface Density Evolution, Vertical Structure, Thickness, Tidal Limitation. Boundary Layer.

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• Lecture 6: November 11: Bright spot. Stream-disk overflow. Viscosity in an accretion disk. Anomalous viscosity – alpha disk model. The magneto-rotational instability. Properties of the thin, steady-state disc. Timescales.

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• Lecture 7: November 23: Existence of Accretion Disks in Close Binary Systems. Cataclysmic Variables (CVs). Classification of CVs.

  PDF * Novae & Spectroscopy

• Lecture 8: November 25: CVs: Classification of CVs (cont.). Distribution of Orbital Periods. Observational evidence for accretion disks in CVs. Light curves of eclipsing CVs. Eclipse analysis. Eclipse Mapping.

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• Lecture 9 and Exercise session: November 26: Eclipse Mapping (cont).

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• Lecture 10: November 30: Spectroscopy: Emission line profiles. Trailed spectra. Doppler Tomography.

  PDF * Paper 1 * Paper 2 * Paper 3 * Paper 4
  

• Lecture 11: December 2: Doppler Tomography: expected and unexpected structures. Dwarf Nova Outbursts. Thermal limit cycle instability. Superoutbursts and Superhumps.

  PDF * Paper 5 * Paper 6 * Movie 1 * Movie 2 * Movie 3 * Movie 4

• Lecture 12: December 3: The Evolution of Cataclysmic Variables.

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• Lecture 13 and students’ presentations: December 7: Nova-like Variables. Magnetically-Controlled Accretion. AM CVn Binaries. X-ray Binaries. The Eddington Luminosity.

  PDF * Movie 5 * Presentations: AM CVn stars – Contact binaries – Symbiotic binaries

• Lecture 14 and students’ presentations: December 9: Structure of the standard α-disk. X-ray Binaries. Bondi-Hoyle wind accretion.

  PDF * Presentations: Algol binaries – LMXBs – HMXBs – Gamma-ray binaries – AMXPs