Age dependent angular momentum, orbital period and total mass of detached binaries

Abstract

The orbital angular momenta OAM (J) of detached binaries (including both cool and hot binaries) were estimated and nine subgroups were formed according to their OAM (J) distribution. The mean kinematical ages of all subgroups have been estimated by using their space velocity distributions and, thus, the age dependent variations of the mean OAM (J), orbital period (P), and total mass (M) of all subgroups were investigated. It was discovered that: i) The orbital period of detached binaries with radiative components decrease very slowly during the main sequence (MS) evolution. It is interesting that the large amount of mass loss is almost balanced by the OAM loss, and not much change in the orbital periods is observed. ii) The nuclear evolution of radiative components beyond the MS initiates the increase of the periods until the components have convective upper layers, i.e. until they become later than F5 IV, and the system becomes a cool binary with sub-giant or giant components. iii) The large co-rotating distance of the magnetically-driven wind in cool binaries (CAB) carries out a large amount of OAM and then the periods of such binaries decrease significantly, and the orbits shrink until another effect such as mass transfer dominates the period changes. © International Astronomical Union 2012.