Mass Transfer Physics in Binary Stars and Applications in Gravitational Wave Sources

Understand

The stability criteria of rapid mass transfer and common-envelope evolution are fundamental in binary star evolution.

• They determine the mass, mass ratio, and orbital distribution of many important systems, such as X-ray binaries, type Ia supernovae, and merging gravitational-wave sources.
• In the limit of extremely rapid mass transfer, the response of a donor star in an interacting binary becomes asymptotically one of adiabatic expansion.
• We built the adiabatic mass-loss model and systematically surveyed the thresholds for dynamical timescale mass transfer over the entire span of possible donor star evolutionary states.