We study the binary star formation process from a rotating magnetized molecular cloud. We assume an isothermal cylindrical cloud in hydrostatic balance whose rotation axis and the direction of global magnetic field lines are both identical, and parallel to the cylinder axis. We added axisymmetric and non-axisymmetric density perturbations to the initial state and followed the subsequent evolutions. The evolution is characterized by three parameters: the amplitude of the non-axisymmetric perturbations, the rotation speed, and the magnetic field strength. As a result, it is found that non-axisymmetry hardly evolves in the early phase, but begins to grow after the gas contracts and forms a thin disk. There are two types of fragmentation: fragmentation from a ring and that from a bar. Thin adiabatic cores fragments if a thickness is smaller than 1/4 of the radius. For the fragments to survive, they should be formed in a heavily elongated barred core or a flat round disk. In the models showing fragmentation, outflows from respective fragments are found as well as those driven by the rotating bar or the disk.

We discuss theoretical aspects of binary and multiple star formation, focusing on their formation in stellar clusters. First, we review individual processes that may occur during the formation of binary and multiple stars: fragmentation, accretion, interactions with circumstellar discs, and dynamical interactions. We then discuss the results from a recent large-scale hydrodynamical calculation of cluster formation in which all of these processes occur simultaneously, examining the formation mechanisms and resulting properties of the binary and multiple stars in this cluster.

The observation that young stars are clustered in few body non-hierarchical multiple systems at very young ages has profound consequences for our understanding of the formation of stars, binaries and the disks and planets that may surround them. In this chapter we review theoretical progress made over the last decade in modeling the break up of these natal clusters and discuss a range of observational predictions that arise from these models, relating to the kinematics, binary statistics and possession of disks of both stars and brown dwarfs. We also argue that one of the most spectacular manifestations of dynamical interactions in young multiple systems should be the formation of giant Herbig-Haro flows, and present observational evidence that may be interpreted in this light.

The separations of the various components of 44 trapezia as a function of time are studied, taking advantage of many new, high precision observations for these objects. A previous study revealed that some systems have components moving with velocities larger than the escape velocity (Allen et al.1974). The present work updates our previous study, extending the observations by about 30 years, and thus allowing an improved determination of the relative transverse motions of the components. The analysis of the new data confirms the conclusions we reached in our previous work: most of the trapezia show the internal motions expected for bound, virialized small clusters, but a few have escaping components. The available observational material lends support to the concept that trapezia are unstable systems with lifetimes of the order of a few million years.

We model the L1551 IRS5 source as a system containing two protostars, each surrounded by a circumstellar disk, both encircled by a circumbinary disk, and all disks surrounded by an extended infalling flattened envelope With this composite model, we can calculate self-consistently the spectral energy distribution of the source the shape of the ice and silicate features, and the spatial intensity distributions of the envelope and disks. We compare our model results with the observations, determining the physical parameters of the disks and the envelope. We find that flattened envelope collapse models are required in order to explain the observations and that the infall rate of the envelope is much larger than the accretion rates of the binary disks.

We study the (time) fluctuations in the outgoing radiation of accretion disks in binary systems in order to obtain properties of those systems (via comparison with observations), such as the angular momentum of the compact star within the disk. The effects of the companion star are discussed, and a prediction is made on the frequency of the outgoing (modulated) X-ray radiation.

Orbital properties of extra-solar planets are briefly recalled and compared with equivalent features of stellar binaries. Similarities and differences are discussed. Among the more than 115 extra-solar planets discovered to date, 19 are orbiting a component of a binary system. We discuss the properties of this subsample and compare them with the equivalent characteristics of planets around single stars. Differences in the mass-period-eccentricity distributions are observed: exoplanets with m2 sin i > 2 MJup and P≤ 40-100 days are in binaries and present low eccentricities. In the context of the migration scenario, these characteristics are tentatively explained in the light of recent simulations of planet-disk interactions showing an increased accretion and migration rates of planets in case an additional perturbing close stellar companion is present in the system. Finally, different observational approaches to find planets in long-period spectroscopic binaries aiming to improve the still poor available statistics are presented. An important result is the detection of a planetary companion in the HD 41004 triple system.

The properties of planets orbiting a component of a binary or multiple-star system appear different from the ones of planets orbiting isolated stars (Udry et al. 2004). The effect of binarity has, however, still to be better characterized and quantified. In this contribution, we describe a VLT/NACO adaptive optics survey aimed at pointing out the potential effect of stellar duplicity on planet formation and evolution, by comparing the faint-companion statistics of similarly selected subsamples of stars with and without planets. The statistical results of the survey will allow us to possiblydiscriminate between the proposed models of planetary formation (accretion or disk instability), some of them predicting different influences of stellar duplicity. Preliminary results are already very interesting: 20 ± 7% of the “single” stars present companions within ~10″, whereas only 3 ± 3% equivalent companions are found close to stars hosting planets.

More than 100 extrasolar planets have been discovered since the 1990s. Unlike those of the solar system, these planets’ orbital eccentricities cover a huge range from 0 to 0.7. Incidentally, the first Kuiper belt object was discovered in 1992. Thus an interesting and important question will be whether extrasolar planetary systems could have structures like the Kuiper belt or asteroid belt. We investigate the stability of these planetary systems with different orbital eccentricities by similar procedures to Rabl & Dvorak (1988) and Holman & Wiegert (1999). We claim that most extrasolar planetary systems can have their own belts at the outer regions. However, we find that orbits with high eccentricity are very powerful in depletion of these populations.

Up to now we have evidence for some 15 planets moving in double stars. They are all of the so-called S-type, which means that they are orbiting one of the primaries. Only two of the binaries have separations in the order of the distances where the planets in our Solar system orbit the Sun, namely Gliese 86 and ϒ Cep. In this study we investigate the stability of the recently discovered planet in ϒ Cep with respect to the orbital parameters of the binary and of the planet. Additionally we check the region inside and outside the planet’s orbit (a = 2.1 AU). Even when the mass of an additional planet in 1 AU would be in the order of that of Jupiter, the discovered planet would be in a stable orbit.

The observational properties of brown dwarfs pose challenges to the theory of star formation. Because their masses are much smaller than the typical Jeans mass of interstellar clouds, brown dwarfs are most likely formed through secondary fragmentation processes, rather than through the direct collapse of a molecular cloud core. In order to prevent substantial post-formation mass accretion, young brown dwarfs must leave the high-density formation regions in which they form. We propose here that brown dwarfs are formed in the optically thin outer regions of circumbinary disks. Through post-formation dynamical interaction with their host binary stars, young brown dwarfs are either scattered to large distance or removed, with modest speed, from their cradles.

Guieloa is the adaptive optics system project for the 2.1-m SPM telescope. This is a 19 sub-apertures curvature-type system. It corrects 8 Zernike terms. Guieloa is very similar to PUEO, the CFHT adaptive optics system and compensates the atmospheric turbulence from the R band to the K band. Among the planned applications of Guieloa are the study of OB binary systems, the detection of close binary stars, and the study of disks, jets and other phenomena associated with young stars.

This paper presents some results of the analysis of the eclipsing binaries samples that came out as by-products of the OGLE microlensing surveys. These experiments monitored millions of stars in the direction of the galactic bulge (OGLE-I), and of the Small Magellanic Cloud (OGLE-II). Their completeness allowed the discovery of rare and interesting systems. An example is a new group of long period binaries in the SMC with presumably a giant component in contact with the critical lobe, which dominates the systemic light variation (“β -contacts”). These systems obey a period-luminosity-color relation and could be used as an auxiliary, but independent, tool for distance determination. Another very interesting object, for its implications in the studies of angular momentum loss processes by magnetic braking and of stellar activity, is the system of shortest known period with M dwarf components, discovered by OGLE-I, BW3 V38, that is the target of a spectroscopic follow-up. The perspectives for close binary star research in view of future space missions, such as COROT and Eddington are briefly discussed.

Lunar occultations and long-baseline interferometry are two direct observational methods capable of delivering milliarcsecond resolution of binary stars. We will review the status of these two techniques, particularly with reference to their respective advantages, limitations, and accessibility for binary star research programs. We will also illustrate the near-term prospects, in connection with the availability of large modern interferometric facilities such as the VLTI.

The GAIA astrometric mission of ESA will be very efficient in discovering binary and multiple stars with any orbital period, from minutes to millions of years. The main parameters of the revised mission design are presented. Next we estimate the fraction of binary stars discovered by means of astrometry, photometry and on-board spectroscopy. Finally we summarize observations that confirm the ability to measure physical parameters like masses, radii and spectroscopic distance from GAIA data alone. GAIA will fly only in 2010, but the radial velocity experiment (RAVE) has started this year. We show that its spectroscopic observations have the capacity to discover a large fraction of so far unknown binary systems.

We have carried out nearly continuous V-band photometry from Yunnan Observatory (China) and Behlen Observatory (Nebraska, USA) of IR Gem for over six days starting three days after a normal outburst in January 2002. Our observations show that the behavior of this SU UMa star is unexpectedly complicated, and that for IR Gem, quiescence is potentially more interesting than outbursts. We find a photometric modulation with a period of 98.5 min, exactly equal to the spectroscopically determined orbital period. We tentatively attribute this to heating of the secondary. During the first three days a modulation appeared with a period 5% longer than the orbital period. We suggest that this might be a signature of apsidal precession of an eccentric disk. During the middle of our period of observations a modulation with a period 3% shorter than the orbital period appeared. We invoke nodal precession to explain this. A slower modulation we found with a period of about 1.7 d is roughly consistent with the expected period of nodal precession. There is a puzzling 4.3 d period modulation that we suspect may be the result of beating between apsidal and nodal precession frequencies. We also find inexplicable quasi-periodic cycles on timescales drifting from ~ 0.2 to ~ 0.4 days.

Forthcoming astrometric missions will observe a huge number of new binaries from which a large fraction will be visual binaries. Detailed planning of optimal detection procedures requires pre-launch information about the observational properties of expected visual binaries. Hence, a synthetic binary catalog is created and analyzed for observational properties of visual binary stars. These results help to understand what kind of binaries we expect to find in the final output catalogs of astrometric missions. These results represent ‘true’ binary distributions if all of them would be observed. All real observational projects or astrometric satellites sample only small fractions of these populations depending on the observational capabilities of the missions. In this study we consider only relative numbers with respect to the total number of binary stars assumed to exist in the sky down to the magnitude limit depending on the astrometric mission.

This paper illustrates different kinds of problems that can be tackled with SB9, the 9th catalogue of spectroscopic binary orbits.

A summary is given of the IAU Colloquium No 191 “The Environment and Evolution of Binary and Multiple Stars.” This conference was held in Mérida, Mexico during February 2003 and dedicated to Dr. Arcadio Poveda for his major contributions to binary- and multiple-star systems and dynamics. The conference was organized to discuss the major developments that are occurring in the fields of binary- and multiple-star formation, evolution, dynamics, and the environments where they form and evolve.