Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2008-11-10
J.Phys.Conf.Ser.172:012034,2009
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
5 pages, 3 figures, for associated movie files, see http://pandora.jacobs-university.de/~mdan/WD_coalescences.htm, to appear i
Scientific paper
10.1088/1742-6596/172/1/012034
We present a numerical study of the mass transfer dynamics prior to the gravitational wave-driven merger of a double white dwarf system. Recently, there has been some discussion about the dynamics of these last stages, different methods seemed to provide qualitatively different results. While earlier SPH simulations indicated a very quick disruption of the binary on roughly the orbital time scale, more recent grid-based calculations find long-lived mass transfer for many orbital periods. Here we demonstrate how sensitive the dynamics of this last stage is to the exact initial conditions. We show that, after a careful preparation of the initial conditions, the reportedly short-lived systems undergo mass transfer for many dozens of orbits. The reported numbers of orbits are resolution-biased and therefore represent only lower limits to what is realized in nature. Nevertheless, the study shows convincingly the convergence of different methods to very similar results.
Brüggen Marcus
Dan Marius
Rosswog Stefan
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