STAR DISK INTERACTIONS AND BINARY STAR FORMATION

We consider the possibility of a large, massive protostellar accretion disc playing a role in the formation of binary stars by enabling the capture of a passing star within a dense star-forming region. We find that capture rates are too low to play a major role in all known star-forming environments, particularly when the probability of prior disc dispersal by the more frequent high-velocity interactions is taken into account.