A Complete Survey of Case A Binary Evolution with Comparison to Observed Algol-type Systems

By Cailin A. Nelson Peter P. Eggleton. 2000

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We undertake a comparison of observed Algol-type binaries with a library of computed Case A binary evolution tracks. The library consists of 5500 binary tracks with various values of initial primary mass M10, mass ratio q0, and period P0, designed to sample the phase-space of Case A binaries in the range -0.10 ≤ log M10 ≤ 1.7. Each binary is evolved using a standard code with the assumption that both total mass and orbital angular momentum are conserved. This code follows the evolution of both stars to the point where contact or reverse mass transfer occurs. The resulting binary tracks show a rich variety of behavior that we sort into several subclasses of case A and case B. We present the results of this classification, the final mass ratio, and the fraction of time spent in Roche Lobe overflow for each binary system. The conservative assumption under which we created this library is expected to hold for a broad range of binaries, where both components have spectra in the range G0 to B1 and luminosity classes III to V. We gather a list of relatively well-determined, observed hot Algol-type binaries meeting this criterion, as well as a list of cooler Algol-type binaries, for which we expect significant dynamo-driven mass loss and angular momentum loss. We fit each observed binary to our library of tracks using a χ2-minimizing procedure. We find that the hot Algols display overall acceptable χ2, confirming the conservative assumption, while the cool Algols show much less acceptable χ2, suggesting the need for more free parameters, such as mass and angular momentum loss.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/89d9ecf9fa9e3d6dab91f99caf135bc7a51854aa

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Citations in the corpus

The chemically homogeneous evolutionary channel for binary black hole mergers: rates and properties of gravitational-wave events detectable by advanced LIGO (2016, background): “The classical evolutionary models predict that near contact binaries with orbital periods less than about 2 days will merge even before or soon after the completion of hydrogen burning due to the expansion of the stars (Nelson & Eggleton 2001; de Mink et al. 2007).”
ON THE TRIPLE ORIGIN OF BLUE STRAGGLERS (2009, background): “The contact phase may be rapid for low mass ratio binaries (q = 0.6), but could extend to a few108−109 yrs for binaries with higher mass ratios, before the final merger and the formation of a BSS (Nelson & Eggleton (2001)).”
Detached white dwarf main-sequence star binaries (2004, background): “…binaries with low- to intermediate-mass component stars has been studied in detail by, e.g., Iben & Tutukov (1985, 1986a, 1987), van der Linden (1987), de Loore & Vanbeveren (1995), Langer et al. (2000), Han et al. (2000), Nelson & Eggleton (2001), Chen & Han (2002, 2003); and references therein.”
THE INCIDENCE OF STELLAR MERGERS AND MASS GAINERS AMONG MASSIVE STARS (2013, background): “Binary evolutionary models predict that a large fraction of these systems evolve into a contact configuration (e.g Pols 1994; Wellstein et al. 2001; Nelson & Eggleton 2001; de Mink et al. 2007).”
Evolution of binary stars and the effect of tides on binary populations (2002, methodology): “By comparing results from the model with observed populations we can enhance our understanding of both binary evolution and the initial distributions (e.g. Eggleton, Fitchett & Tout 1989; Tutukov & Yungelson 1996; Terman, Taam & Savage 1998; Nelson & Eggleton 2001).”
A catalogue of eclipsing variables (2006, background): “Nelson & Eggleton (2001) in their theoretical study also discuss hot and cool semi-detached systems.”
Rotational mixing in massive binaries - Detached short-period systems (2009, unknown): “…of close massive binaries has been modeled by various groups (e.g. Podsiadlowski et al. 1992; Pols 1994; Wellstein et al. 2001; Wellstein & Langer 1999; Nelson & Eggleton 2001; Belczynski et al. 2002; Petrovic et al. 2005a; Vanbeveren et al. 2007; De Mink et al. 2007, and references therein).”
COSMIC Variance in Binary Population Synthesis (2019, methodology): “…evolution code previously developed for single stars to include the effects of binary evolution, as found in ev/STARS/TWIN (Pols et al. 1995; Nelson & Eggleton 2001), the Brussels population number synthesis code, PNS (De Donder & Vanbeveren 2004), BINSTAR (Siess et al. 2013), MESA (Paxton…”
Progenitors of gravitational wave mergers: binary evolution with the stellar grid-based code ComBinE (2018, methodology): “…on the main sequence (i.e. during core hydrogen burning) the stability of mass transfer is evaluated in ComBinE by comparing their mass ratio, q at the onset of the mass transfer to a threshold value, qlimit (e.g. Nelson & Eggleton 2001; de Mink et al. 2008, and see discussion in Section 5.1.5).”
Delay-time distribution of core-collapse supernovae with late events resulting from binary interaction (2017, background): “…come into contact during the initial rapid mass transfer phase, denoted as Case AR, with A referring to the fact that the donor star still resides on the main sequence and R referring to the rapid mass transfer phase in the classification by Kippenhahn & Weigert (1967) and Nelson & Eggleton (2001).”
Evolution of Close Binary Systems (2005, background): “…1976b, 1977a, 1977b, 2003), Flannery (1976), van’t Veer (1976), Lucy (1976), Robertson & Eggleton (1977), Lucy & Wilson (1979), Eggleton (1981, 1996), Rahunen&Vilhu (1982), Rucinski (1983), Smith (1984), Hilditch (1989), Sarna & Fedorova (1989), Stěpień (1995, 2003), and Nelson & Eggleton (2001).”