Eccentricity dynamics of wide binaries -- II. The effect of stellar encounters and constraints on formation channels

GAIA wide stellar binaries (separations \sim 10^3-10^{4.5} AU) are observed to have a superthermal eccentricity distribution function (DF), well-fit by P(e) \propto e^\alpha with \alpha \sim 1.2. In Modak \& Hamilton (2023), we proved that this DF cannot have been produced by Galactic tidal torques starting from any realistic DF... Show more