A high fraction of close massive binary stars at low metallicity
Sana H, Shenar T, Bodensteiner J, Britavskiy N, Langer N, Lennon DJ, Mahy L, Mandel I, De Mink SE, Patrick LR, Villaseñor JI, Dirickx M, Abdul-Masih M, Almeida LA, Backs F, Berlanas SR, Bernini-Peron M, Bowman DM, Bronner VA, Crowther PA, Deshmukh K, Evans CJ, Fabry M, Gieles M, Gilkis A, González-Torà G, Gräfener G, Götberg YLL, Hawcroft C, Hénault-Brunet V, Herrero A, Holgado G, Izzard RG, De Koter A, Janssens S, Johnston C, Josiek J, Justham S, Kalari VM, Klencki J, Kubát J, Kubátová B, Lefever RR, Van Loon JT, Ludwig B, Mackey J, Maíz Apellániz J, Maravelias G, Marchant P, Mazeh T, Menon A, Moe M, Najarro F, Oskinova LM, Ovadia R, Pauli D, Pawlak M, Ramachandran V, Renzo M, Rocha DF, Sander AAC, Schneider FRN, Schootemeijer A, Schösser EC, Schürmann C, Sen K, Shahaf S, Simón-Díaz S, Van Son LAC, Stoop M, Toonen S, Tramper F, Valli R, Vigna-Gómez A, Vink JS, Wang C, Willcox R. 2025. A high fraction of close massive binary stars at low metallicity. Nature Astronomy.
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Author
Sana, H.;
Shenar, T.;
Bodensteiner, J.;
Britavskiy, N.;
Langer, N.;
Lennon, D. J.;
Mahy, L.;
Mandel, I.;
De Mink, S. E.;
Patrick, L. R.;
Villaseñor, J. I.;
Dirickx, M.
All
All
Department
Abstract
At high metallicity, a majority of massive stars have at least one close stellar companion. The evolution of such binaries is subject to strong interaction processes, which heavily impact the characteristics of their life-ending supernova and compact remnants. For the low-metallicity environments of high-redshift galaxies, constraints on the multiplicity properties of massive stars over the separation range leading to binary interaction are crucially missing. Here we show that the presence of massive stars in close binaries is ubiquitous, even at low metallicity. Using the Very Large Telescope, we obtained multi-epoch radial velocity measurements of a representative sample of 139 massive O-type stars across the Small Magellanic Cloud, which has a metal content of about one-fifth of the solar value. We find that 45% of them show radial velocity variations that demonstrate that they are members of close binary systems, and predominantly have orbital periods shorter than 1 year. Correcting for observational biases indicates that at least 70+11−6 % of the O stars in our sample are in close binaries, and that at least 68+7
−8% of all O stars interact with a companion star during their lifetime. We found no evidence supporting a statistically significant trend of the multiplicity properties with metallicity. Our results indicate that multiplicity and binary interactions govern the evolution of massive stars and determine their cosmic feedback and explosive fates.
Publishing Year
Date Published
2025-09-02
Journal Title
Nature Astronomy
Publisher
Springer Nature
Acknowledgement
Based on data collected at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) under programme ID 112.25R7. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (grant agreement numbers 772225: MULTIPLES, 772086: ASSESS and 945806: TEL-STARS, ADG101054731: Stellar-BHs-SDSS-V, and 101164755: METAL). This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) under grant number 0603225041. We acknowledge support from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (research grant ST/V000853/1 and ST/V000233/1), UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the UK government’s ERC Horizon Europe funding guarantee (grant number EP/Y031059/1), a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (grant number URF\R1\231631), a Royal Society–Science Foundation Ireland University Research Fellowship, the German Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Project-ID 496854903, 445674056 and 443790621, Germany’s Excellence Strategy EXC 2181/1-390900948), the Klaus Tschira Foundation, the JSPS Kakenhi Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (23K19071) and international fellowships (at the Graduate school of Science, Tokyo University), the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav; project number CE230100016), the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft und Raumfahrt (DLR) grants FKZ 50OR2005 and 50OR2306, Agencia Española de Investigación (AEI) of the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia Innovación y Universidades (MICIU) and the European Regional Development Fund, FEDER and Severo Ochoa Programme (grants PID2021-122397NB-C21 and CEX2019-000920-S), the NextGeneration EU/PRTR and MIU (UNI/551/2021) trough grant Margarita Salas-UL, the CAPES-Br and FAPERJ/DSC-10 (SEI-260003/001630/2023), MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 by ‘ERDF A way of making Europe’ (grants PID2019-105552RB-C41 and PID2022-137779OB-C41, PID2021-125485NB-C22, CEX2019-000918-M) funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 (State Agency for Research of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation) and SGR-2021-01069 (AGAUR), the Spanish Government Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and Agencia Estatal de Investigación (10.13 039/501 100 011 033; grant PID2022-136 640 NB-C22), the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC; grant 2022-AEP 005), the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (BEKKER fellowship BPN/BEK/2022/1/00106) and National Science Center (NCN, Poland; grant number OPUS 2021/41/B/ST9/00757), the ‘La Caixa’ Foundation (ID 100010434) under the fellowship code LCF/BQ/PI23/11970035, the Research foundation Flanders (FWO) PhD fellowship under project 11E1721N and senior postdoctoral fellowship under number 12ZY523N, and the Netherlands Research Council NWO (VIDI 203.061 grant).
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Cite this
Sana H, Shenar T, Bodensteiner J, et al. A high fraction of close massive binary stars at low metallicity. Nature Astronomy. 2025. doi:10.1038/s41550-025-02610-x
Sana, H., Shenar, T., Bodensteiner, J., Britavskiy, N., Langer, N., Lennon, D. J., … Willcox, R. (2025). A high fraction of close massive binary stars at low metallicity. Nature Astronomy. Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-025-02610-x
Sana, H., T. Shenar, J. Bodensteiner, N. Britavskiy, N. Langer, D. J. Lennon, L. Mahy, et al. “A High Fraction of Close Massive Binary Stars at Low Metallicity.” Nature Astronomy. Springer Nature, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-025-02610-x.
H. Sana et al., “A high fraction of close massive binary stars at low metallicity,” Nature Astronomy. Springer Nature, 2025.
Sana H, Shenar T, Bodensteiner J, Britavskiy N, Langer N, Lennon DJ, Mahy L, Mandel I, De Mink SE, Patrick LR, Villaseñor JI, Dirickx M, Abdul-Masih M, Almeida LA, Backs F, Berlanas SR, Bernini-Peron M, Bowman DM, Bronner VA, Crowther PA, Deshmukh K, Evans CJ, Fabry M, Gieles M, Gilkis A, González-Torà G, Gräfener G, Götberg YLL, Hawcroft C, Hénault-Brunet V, Herrero A, Holgado G, Izzard RG, De Koter A, Janssens S, Johnston C, Josiek J, Justham S, Kalari VM, Klencki J, Kubát J, Kubátová B, Lefever RR, Van Loon JT, Ludwig B, Mackey J, Maíz Apellániz J, Maravelias G, Marchant P, Mazeh T, Menon A, Moe M, Najarro F, Oskinova LM, Ovadia R, Pauli D, Pawlak M, Ramachandran V, Renzo M, Rocha DF, Sander AAC, Schneider FRN, Schootemeijer A, Schösser EC, Schürmann C, Sen K, Shahaf S, Simón-Díaz S, Van Son LAC, Stoop M, Toonen S, Tramper F, Valli R, Vigna-Gómez A, Vink JS, Wang C, Willcox R. 2025. A high fraction of close massive binary stars at low metallicity. Nature Astronomy.
Sana, H., et al. “A High Fraction of Close Massive Binary Stars at Low Metallicity.” Nature Astronomy, Springer Nature, 2025, doi:10.1038/s41550-025-02610-x.
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