Binary evolution and its applications

At least half of the stars are in binaires. Binary interactions make stellar evolution more complicated, and lead to the formation of many important stellar objects. In this talk, I will discuss mass transfer in binary systems and common envelope evolution, which determines the evolutionary paths and destinies of the systems. I will also discuss the formation of progenitors of type Ia supernovae, hot subdwarf binaries, low-mass white dwarf binaries, double compact objects as gravitational wave sources. Finally I will discuss the application of binary evolution to the study of galaxies.