The expansion of stripped-envelope stars: consequences for supernovae and gravitational-wave progenitors

Understand

Massive binaries that merge as compact objects are the progenitors of gravitational-wave sources.

• Most of these binaries experience one or more phases of mass transfer, during which one of the stars loses part or all of its outer envelope and becomes a stripped-envelope star.
• The evolution of the size of these stripped stars is crucial in determining whether they experience further interactions and their final fate.
• We present new calculations of stripped-envelope stars based on binary evolution models computed with MESA.