6 research outputs found
Type Ia Supernovae: An Examination of Potential Progenitors and the Redshift Distribution
We examine the possibility that supernovae type Ia (SN Ia) are produced by
white dwarfs accreting from Roche-lobe filling evolved companions, under the
assumption that a strong optically thick stellar wind from accretor is able to
stabilize the mass transfer. We show that if a mass transfer phase on a thermal
timescale precedes a nuclear burning driven phase, then such systems (of which
the supersoft X-ray sources are a subgroup) can account for about 10% of the
inferred SN Ia rate.
In addition, we examine the cosmic history of the supernova rate, and we show
that the ratio of the rate of SN Ia to the rate of supernovae produced by
massive stars (supernovae of types II, Ib, Ic) should increase from about z = 1
towards lower redshifts.Comment: 29 pages, Latex, 6 figures, aasms4.sty, psfig.sty, to appear in The
Astrophysical Journa
Jets and Tori in Proto-Planetary Nebulae
We investigate the time sequence for the appearance of jets and molecular
tori in the transition of stars from the Asymptotic Giant Branch to the
planetary nebula phase. Jets and tori are prominent features of this evolution,
but their origins are uncertain. Using optical and millimeter line kinematics,
we determine the ejection history in a sample of well-observed cases. We find
that jets and tori develop nearly simultaneously. We also find evidence that
jets typically appear slightly later than tori, with a lag time of a few
hundred years. These characteristics provide strong evidence that jets and tori
are physically related, and they set new constraints on theories of jet
formation. The ejection of a discrete torus followed by jets on a short time
scale favors the class of models in which a companion interacts with the
central star. Models with long time scales, or with jets followed by a torus,
are ruled out.Comment: 24 pages, 2 figures, to be published in Ap
Transients Among Binaries with Evolved Low-Mass Companions
We show that stable disk accretion should be very rare among low-mass X-ray
binaries and cataclysmic variables whose evolution is driven by the nuclear
expansion of the secondary star on the first giant branch. Stable accretion is
confined to neutron-star systems where the secondary is still relatively
massive, and some supersoft white dwarf accretors. All other systems, including
all black-hole systems, appear as soft X-ray transients or dwarf novae. All
long-period neutron-star systems become transient well before most of the
envelope mass is transferred, and remain transient until envelope exhaustion.
This complicates attempts to compare the numbers of millisecond pulsars in the
Galactic disk with their LMXB progenitors, and also means that the pulsar spin
rates are fixed in systems which are transient rather than steady, contrary to
common assumption. The long-period persistent sources Sco X-2, LMC X-2, Cyg X-2
and V395 Car must have minimum companion masses > 0.75 Msun if they contain
neutron stars, and still larger masses if they contain black holes. The
companion in the neutron-star transient GRO J1744-2844 must have a mass <0.87
Msun. The existence of any steady sources at all at long periods supports the
ideas that (a) the accretion disks in many, if not all, LMXBs are strongly
irradiated by the central source, and (b) mass transfer is thermally unstable
in long-period supersoft X-ray sources.Comment: 10 pages, Latex, 1 ps figure, Ap.J., accepted Feb. 15, 199
BINSTAR: a new binary stellar evolution code. Tidal interactions
We provide a detailed description of a new stellar evolution code, BINSTAR, which has been developed to study interacting binaries. Based on the stellar evolution code STAREVOL, it is specifically designed to study low- and intermediate-mass binaries. We describe the state-of-the-art input physics, which includes treatments of tidal interactions, mass transfer and angular momentum exchange within the system. A generalised Henyey method is used to solve simultaneously the stellar structure equations of each component as well as the separation and eccentricity of the orbit. Test simulations for cases A and B mass transfer are presented and compared with available models. The results of the evolution of Algol systems are in remarkable agreement with the calculations of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) group, thus validating our code.We also computed a large grid of models for various masses (2 ≤ M/M ≤ 20) and seven metallicities (Z = 0.0001, 0.001, 0.004, 0.008, 0.01, 0.02, 0.03) to provide a useful analytical parameterisation of the tidal torque constant E2, which allows the determination of the circularisation and synchronisation timescales for stars with a radiative envelope and convective core. The evolution of E2 during the main sequence shows noticeable differences compared to available models. In particular, our new calculations indicate that the circularisation timescale is constant during core hydrogen burning. We also show that E2 weakly depends on core overshooting but is substantially increased when the metallicity becomes lower. © ESO 2013.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe
Common Envelope Evolution Redux
Common envelopes form in dynamical time scale mass exchange, when the
envelope of a donor star engulfs a much denser companion, and the core of the
donor plus the dense companion star spiral inward through this dissipative
envelope. As conceived by Paczynski and Ostriker, this process must be
responsible for the creation of short-period binaries with degenerate
components, and, indeed, it has proven capable of accounting for short-period
binaries containing one white dwarf component. However, attempts to reconstruct
the evolutionary histories of close double white dwarfs have proven more
problematic, and point to the need for enhanced systemic mass loss, either
during the close of the first, slow episode of mass transfer that produced the
first white dwarf, or during the detached phase preceding the final, common
envelope episode. The survival of long-period interacting binaries with massive
white dwarfs, such as the recurrent novae T CrB and RS Oph, also presents
interpretative difficulties for simple energetic treatments of common envelope
evolution. Their existence implies that major terms are missing from usual
formulations of the energy budget for common envelope evolution. The most
plausible missing energy term is the energy released by recombination in the
common envelope, and, indeed, a simple reformulation the energy budget
explicitly including recombination resolves this issue.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figures. To appear in "Short Period Binary Stars", ed.
E.F. Milone, D.A. Leahy, & D.W. Hobill (Springer