The impact of common envelope development criteria on the formation of LIGO/Virgo sources

Understand

The treatment and criteria for development of unstable Roche lobe overflow (RLOF) that leads to the common envelope (CE) phase have hindered the evolutionary predictions for decades.

• In particular, the formation of black hole-black hole (BH-BH), black hole-neutron star (BH-NS), and neutron star-neutron star (NS-NS) merging binaries depends sensitively on the CE phase in classical isolated binary evolution model.
• All these mergers are now reported as LIGO/Virgo sources or source candidates.
• CE is even considered by some as a mandatory phase in the formation of BH-BH, BH-NS or NS-NS mergers in binary evolution.