Binary Capture Rates for Massive Protostars

Abstract

The high multiplicity of massive stars in dense, young clusters is established early in their evolution. The mechanism behind this remains unresolved. Recent results suggest that massive protostars may capture companions through disk interactions with much higher efficiency than their solar mass counterparts. However, this conclusion is based on analytic determinations of capture rates and estimates of the robustness of the resulting binaries. We present the results of coupled n-body and SPH simulations of star-disk encounters to further test the idea that disk-captured binaries contribute to the observed multiplicity of massive stars.