Subscribe to the gold package and get unlimited access to Shamra Academy
Register a new userPre-Common-Envelope Mass Loss from Coalescing Binary Systems
83
0
0.0
(
0
)
Ask ChatGPT about the research
No Arabic abstract
Binary systems undergoing unstable Roche Lobe overflow spill gas into their circumbinary environment as their orbits decay toward coalescence. In this paper, we use a suite of hydrodynamic models of coalescing binaries involving an extended donor and a more compact accretor. We focus on the period of unstable Roche Lobe overflow that ends as the accretor plunges within the envelope of the donor at the onset of a common envelope phase. During this stage, mass is removed from the donor and flung into the circumbinary environment. Across a wide range of binary mass ratios, we find that the mass expelled as the separation decreases from the Roche limit to the donors original radius is of the order of 25% of the accretors mass. We study the kinematics of this ejecta and its dependencies on binary properties and find that it assembles into a toroidal circumbinary distribution. These circumbinary tori have approximately constant specific angular momentum due to momentum transport by spiral shocks launched from the orbiting binary. We show that an analytic model with these torus properties captures many of the main features of the azimuthally-averaged profiles of our hydrodynamic simulations. Our results, in particular the simple relationship between accretor mass and expelled mass and its spatial distribution, may be useful in interpreting stellar coalescence transients like luminous red novae, and in initializing hydrodynamic simulations of the subsequent common envelope phase.
rate research
Read More
We evolve stellar models to study the common envelope (CE) interaction of an early asymptotic giant branch star of initial mass $5,rm M_{odot}$ with a companion star of mass ranging from $0.1$ to $2,rm M_{odot}$. We model the CE as a fast stripping phase in which the primary experiences rapid mass loss and loses about 80 per cent of its mass. The post-CE remnant is then allowed to thermally readjust during a Roche-lobe overflow (RLOF) phase and the final binary system and its orbital period are investigated. We find that the post-CE RLOF phase is long enough to allow nuclear burning to proceed in the helium shell. By the end of this phase, the donor is stripped of both its hydrogen and helium and ends up as carbon-oxygen white dwarf of mass about $0.8,rm M_{odot}$. We study the sensitivity of our results to initial conditions of different companion masses and orbital separations at which the stripping phase begins. We find that the companion mass affects the final binary separation and that helium-shell burning causes the star to refill its Roche lobe leading to post-CE RLOF. Our results show that double mass transfer in such a binary interaction is able to strip the helium and hydrogen layers from the donor star without the need for any special conditions or fine tuning of the binary parameters.
As the number of observed merging binary black holes (BHs) grows, accurate models are required to disentangle multiple formation channels. In models with isolated binaries, important uncertainties remain regarding the stability of mass transfer (MT) and common-envelope (CE) evolution. To study some of these uncertainties, we have computed simulations using MESA of a $30M_odot$, low metallicity ($Z_odot/10$) star with a BH companion. We developed a prescription to compute MT rates including possible outflows from outer Lagrangian points, and a method to self-consistently determine the core-envelope boundary in the case of CE evolution. We find that binaries survive a CE only if unstable MT happens after the formation of a deep convective envelope, resulting in a narrow range (0.2 dex) in period for envelope ejection. All cases where interaction is initiated with a radiative envelope have large binding energies ($sim 10^{50}$ erg), and merge during CE even under the assumption that all the internal and recombination energy of the envelope, as well as the energy from an inspiral, is used for ejection. This is independent of core helium ignition for the donor, a condition under which various rapid-population synthesis calculations assume a successful ejection is possible. Moreover, we find that the critical mass ratio for instability is such that for periods between $sim 1-1000$ days merging binary BHs can be formed via stable MT. A large fraction of these systems overflow their L$_2$ equipotential, in which case we find stable MT produces merging binary BHs even under extreme assumptions of mass and angular momentum outflows. Our conclusions are limited to the study of one donor star, but suggest that population synthesis calculations overestimate the formation rate of merging binary BHs produced by CE evolution, and that stable MT could dominate the rate from isolated binaries.
Common-envelope (CE) evolution in massive binary systems is thought to be one of the most promising channels for the formation of compact binary mergers. In the case of merging binary black holes (BBHs), the essential CE phase takes place at a stage when the first BH is already formed and the companion star expands as a supergiant. We study which BH binaries with supergiant companions will evolve through and potentially survive a CE phase. To this end, we compute envelope binding energies from detailed massive stellar models at different evolutionary stages and metallicities. We make multiple physically extreme choices of assumptions that favor easier CE ejection as well as account for recent advancements in mass transfer stability criteria. We find that even with the most optimistic assumptions, a successful CE ejection in BH (and also NS) binaries is only possible if the donor is a massive convective-envelope giant, a red supergiant (RSG). In other words, pre-CE progenitors of BBH mergers are BH binaries with RSG companions. We find that due to its influence on the radial expansion of massive giants, metallicity has an indirect but a very strong effect on the envelope structure and binding energies of RSGs. Our results suggest that merger rates from population synthesis models could be severely overestimated, especially at low metallicity. Additionally, the lack of observed RSGs with luminosities above log($L/L_{odot}$) = 5.6-5.8, corresponding to stars with $M > 40 M_{odot}$, puts into question the viability of the CE channel for the formation of the most massive BBH mergers. Either such RSGs elude detection due to very short lifetimes, or they do not exist and the CE channel can only produce BBH systems with total mass $< 50 M_{odot}$. We discuss an alternative CE scenario, in which a partial envelope ejection is followed by a phase of possibly long and stable mass transfer.
The discovery via gravitational waves of binary black hole systems with total masses greater than $60M_odot$ has raised interesting questions for stellar evolution theory. Among the most promising formation channels for these systems is one involving a common envelope binary containing a low metallicity, core helium burning star with mass $sim 80-90M_odot$ and a black hole with mass $sim 30-40M_odot$. For this channel to be viable, the common envelope binary must eject more than half the giant stars mass and reduce its orbital separation by as much as a factor of 80. We discuss issues faced in numerically simulating the common envelope evolution of such systems and present a 3D AMR simulation of the dynamical inspiral of a low-metallicity red supergiant with a massive black hole companion.
Common envelope (CE) is an important phase in the evolution of interacting evolved binary systems. The interaction of the binary components during the CE evolution (CEE) stage gives rise to orbital inspiral and the formation of a short-period binary or a merger, on the expense of extending and/or ejecting the envelope. CEE is not well understood, as hydrodynamical simulations show that only a fraction of the CE-mass is ejected during the dynamical inspiral, in contrast with observations of post-CE binaries. Different CE models suggest different timescales are involved in the CE-ejection, and hence a measurement of the CE-ejection timescale could provide direct constraints on the CEE-process. Here we propose a novel method for constraining the mass-loss timescale of the CE, using post-CE binaries which are part of wide-orbit triple systems. The orbit/existence of a third companion constrains the CE mass-loss timescale, since rapid CE mass-loss may disrupt the triple system, while slower CE mass-loss may change the orbit of the third companion without disrupting it. As first test-cases we examine two observed post-CE binaries in wide triples, Wolf-1130 and GD-319. We follow their evolution due to mass-loss using analytic and numerical tools, and consider different mass-loss functions. We calculate a wide grid of binary parameters and mass-loss timescales in order to determine the most probable mass-loss timescale leading to the observed properties of the systems. We find that mass-loss timescales of the order of $10^{3}-10^{5}{rm yr}$ are the most likely to explain these systems. Such long timescales are in tension with most of the CE mass-loss models, which predict shorter, dynamical timescales, but are potentially consistent with the longer timescales expected from the dust-driven winds model for CE ejection.
Log in to be able to interact and post comments
comments
Fetching comments
Sign in to be able to follow your search criteria
