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The Evolution of Accreting Binaries: From Brown Dwarfs to Supermassive Black Holes

  • Authors: Alexander J. Dittmann, Geoffrey Ryan

Alexander J. Dittmann and Geoffrey Ryan 2024 The Astrophysical Journal 967 .

  • Provider: AAS Journals

Caption: Figure 5.

The evolution of binary mass ratios and semimajor axes in the same simulations shown in Figure 4. We find that all unequal-mass binaries are driven toward q = 1, although binaries accreting from α disks accrete toward equal mass at a faster rate. At intermediate mass ratios, where the gravitational torque is negative or small in magnitude (see Equation (19)), binaries are driven to inspiral, while at other mass ratios the binaries can outspiral rather quickly. Notably, the rate of outspiral at low mass ratios varies strongly with viscosity, with disks with constant kinematic viscosity leading to significantly faster outspirals. Numerical values are provided in Table 4.

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