The Few-Body Problem, Close Binary Stars and Steller Associations

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Abstract
It is suggested that the origin of the expansion of stellar associations is in the dynamical instability of systems of a few protostars formed by fragmentation in a massive cloud. In a first attempt to check this idea the equations of motion for a system of three self-gravitating particles have been integrated numerically for many cases of initial motion. It is found to be not unlikely that the instability of such systems is resolved by actual ejection of a particle. If the particles are massive enough the ejection can be sufficiently energetic to account for the existence of very massive stars with high velocity—the ‘runaway’ stars.

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