The influence of binary stars on stellar and Galactic evolution, as revealed by current and large surveys

The goal of the project is to determine the evolution of binary stars in the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram (HRD). Ideally, for different initial combinations of stellar components and orbital configurations of the binaries, we would like to be able to predict their evolutionary paths starting from their initial location on the main sequence all the way to their ultimate fate. Binarity will modify stellar evolutionary paths through physical processes such as tidal interactions, mass transfer, extra internal mixing, or even merging. Population synthesis models excluding binaries are known to produce incorrect Galactic abundance trends.

Right now, it is opportune to work towards this important goal, as current and future large spectroscopic surveys provide a homogeneous database with large samples of the various types of binary stars for which physical parameters, chemical abundances, and orbital parameters can be determined. Improved statistics of the properties of binaries in different stages of stellar evolution will allow us to gain new insights about how their components interact and the systems evolve. However, traditional data-analysis methods are inadequate to cope with such vast data volumes. These are, on the other hand, ideal for data-mining applications using new machine-learning techniques.

We will look for clues in various binary populations to gain insight in when and how binary components interact, and how the systems evolve across the HRD. This will have important repercussions on stellar evolution and population synthesis modeling.