Born to be wide: the distribution of wide binaries in the field and soft binaries in clusters

Understand

Most stars, binaries, and higher multiplicity systems are thought to form in stellar clusters and associations, which later dissociate.

• Very wide binaries can be easily disrupted in clusters due to dynamical evaporation (soft binaries) and/or due to tidal disruption by the gravitational potential of the cluster.
• Nevertheless, wide binaries are quite frequent in the field, where they can sometimes play a key role in the formation of compact binaries, and serve as tools to study key physical processes.
• Here we use analytic tools to study the dynamical formation of soft binaries in clusters, and their survival as field binaries following cluster dispersion.