THE ORIGIN OF BINARY STARS

Although we have a general understanding of the manner in which individual stars form, our understanding of how binary stars form is far from complete. This is in large part due to the fact that the star formation process happens very quickly and in regions of the Galaxy that are difficult to study observationally. We review the theoretical models that have been developed in an effort to explain how binaries form. Several proposed mechanisms appear to be quite promising, but none is completely satisfactory.