dougettinger wrote:Yes, most likely not all combinations have been discovered. This means that a star next to a neutron star or black hole survived the neighboring star's supernova explosion and went on to continue its life possibly affected by capturing more mass from the explosive debris. Is this a correct assumption ?
Yes, a supernova can occur without destroying its companion. There's no reason to think the companion would capture much mass from the debris, however, since it is moving outwards at much greater than the system's escape velocity. The only material the companion will catch is that which comes right at it- a tiny amount. And that is offset by the shock wave, which may well carry away material.
Your explanation is news to me, but also very enlightening. Astrophysicists with few exceptions assume that true binary star systems were created at the same time from a dense molecular cloud of dust and gases. The difference in the stars are their masses which leads to different life spans. Then I presume these binaries have similar content of metals. Are my statements correct ?
AFAIK there are no binaries where the components have different metallicities.
In reading about the binary Sirius A and B, I learned that the age of the system is determined to be between 200 and 300 million years old. How was this determination made ? by processing observed data? or by postulations made from the nucleosynthesis theory?
I don't know for sure, but I presume it was by looking at the mass and temperature-luminosity relationship. That's the usual way that stellar ages are calculated.
[quote="dougettinger"]Yes, most likely not all combinations have been discovered. This means that a star next to a neutron star or black hole survived the neighboring star's supernova explosion and went on to continue its life possibly affected by capturing more mass from the explosive debris. Is this a correct assumption ?[/quote]
Yes, a supernova can occur without destroying its companion. There's no reason to think the companion would capture much mass from the debris, however, since it is moving outwards at much greater than the system's escape velocity. The only material the companion will catch is that which comes right at it- a tiny amount. And that is offset by the shock wave, which may well carry away material.
[quote]Your explanation is news to me, but also very enlightening. Astrophysicists with few exceptions assume that true binary star systems were created at the same time from a dense molecular cloud of dust and gases. The difference in the stars are their masses which leads to different life spans. Then I presume these binaries have similar content of metals. Are my statements correct ?[/quote]
AFAIK there are no binaries where the components have different metallicities.
[quote]In reading about the binary Sirius A and B, I learned that the age of the system is determined to be between 200 and 300 million years old. How was this determination made ? by processing observed data? or by postulations made from the nucleosynthesis theory?[/quote]
I don't know for sure, but I presume it was by looking at the mass and temperature-luminosity relationship. That's the usual way that stellar ages are calculated.