Abstracts Astronomy & Space Science

Constraining Tidal Quality Factor in Low-mass Eclipsing Binaries Using Tidal Synchronization

by Ruskin 1992- Patel

Tides play a crucial role in shaping the evolution of the bodies in binary systems. With the discovery of close-in hot Jupiter systems from exoplanet missions such as Kepler and TESS, it has become imperative to understand the tidal effects, which can shed light on their formation and observed orbital properties. Various models proposed in the literature come with some inherent assumptions on the evolution of binary systems under the influence of tides. The tidal dissipation in stars or planets is generally studied empirically using an efficiency parameter, commonly known as the Tidal Quality Factor (Q∗). Throughout the literature, significant inconsistencies exist in the constraints obtained on Q∗. In this thesis, we aim to remove these inconsistencies by relaxing some of the assumptions previously made and exploring the dependencies of Q∗ on stellar and orbital properties. We perform Monte Carlo Markov Chain simulations to find tight constraints on Q∗ using the observed rotation periods of primary star in eclipsing binary systems, selected from the Kepler Catalog.