The role of mass transfer and common envelope evolution in the formation of merging binary black holes

Understand

As the number of observed merging binary black holes (BHs) grows, accurate models are required to disentangle multiple formation channels.

• In models with isolated binaries, important uncertainties remain regarding the stability of mass transfer (MT) and common-envelope (CE) evolution.
• To study some of these uncertainties, we have computed simulations using MESA of a $30M_\odot$, low metallicity ($Z_\odot/10$) star with a BH companion.
• We developed a prescription to compute MT rates including possible outflows from outer Lagrangian points, and a method to self-consistently determine the core-envelope boundary in the case of CE evolution.