The Realistic Response of Giants Upon Mass Loss Using Non-Adiabatic Models

Details The Realistic Response of Giants Upon Mass Loss Using Non-Adiabatic Models The Realistic Response of Giants Upon Mass Loss Using Non-Adiabatic Models

Jan 2012

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2012aas...21915339p&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #219, #153.39

Physics

Scientific paper

Stability of mass transfer is one of the most important ingredient on which binary evolution relies on. In the context of interacting binaries with a donor filling its Roche lobe on a giant branch, it dictates whether a given system will enter a common envelope or not, for instance. The criterion for stability depends on the response of both the donor's Roche radius and its stellar radius. The latter relates to the response of the donor only and can therefore, in most cases, be studied separately.
Previous models relied on modeling giant stars using polytropic stratifications and/or assuming that mass loss happens on a timescale shorter than the thermal timescale of the donor which, consequently, evolves adiabatically. These models yield the paradigm that giants expand upon mass loss so that mass loss starting in semi-detached binaries with a giant donor tends to be unstable. However, this approach is not realistic as it does not capture the response of the superadiabatic layer of the donor which has a local thermal timescale so short that it will readjust on a timescale comparable to the dynamical timescale induced by mass loss.
In this contribution, we are thus trying a different approach using the MESA code with up-to-date macro- and microphysics modules, and follow the donor's response upon high mass loss rates. We find that giants actually barely expand, if at all. This behavior vouches that the adiabatic assumption is void and that more binary systems than previously thought are actually stable against mass transfer.

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