Theory, Simulations and Observations of Stellar Mergers

Abstract: Stellar mergers are responsible for a large variety of astrophysical phenomena. They form blue straggler stars, give rise to spectacular transients, and produce some of the most massive stars in the Universe. Here, we focus on mergers from binary evolution and stellar collisions but do not cover mergers involving compact objects. We review how mergers come about, explain the physics and outcome of the merger process, discuss the evolution and ultimate fates of merged stars, and relate to observations. Our main conclusions are: (i) Mergers of main-sequence stars often fully rejuvenate and have interior structures similar to genuine single stars. (ii) Contrarily, mergers involving post-main-sequence stars can have interior structures that cannot be achieved by single-star evolution. Such merged stars may become long-lived blue supergiants that can explode in SN1987A-like events, interacting and superluminous supernovae, ultra-long gamma-ray bursts or collapse into very massive black holes. These black holes may even populate the pair-instability-supernova black-hole mass gap. (iii) Strong magnetic fields are produced in stellar mergers. Merged stars may thus be at the origin of some magnetic OBA stars and their descendants, highly magnetic white dwarfs and neutron stars. (iv) Initially, stellar merger products rotate rapidly, but there are several mechanisms that can quickly spin them down. Hence, merged stars may be rather slow rotators for most of their evolution.