N - Body Binary Evolution

It has long been recognized that binary stars represent a significant and important population within a star cluster and are present from the time of formation (Hut et al. 1992). As such, binary stars have been included in Nbody models of star cluster evolution for quite some time (Heggie & Aarseth 1992, for example). However, these early models focused only on the dynamical evolution of binaries – orbital changes resulting from encounters with other cluster stars. It was not until the emergence of rapid binary evolution algorithms (also called population synthesis codes: Tout et al. 1997; Yungelson et al. 1995) that facets of internal binary evolution such as mass-transfer were followed in N-body codes.