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On the Accretion-fed Growth of Neutron Stars during Common Envelope

  • Authors: Morgan MacLeod and Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz

MacLeod & Ramirez-Ruiz 2015 The Astrophysical Journal Letters 798 L19.

  • Provider: AAS Journals

Caption: Figure 4.

Post-CE states for originally 1.33 M NSs involved in interactions with wide variety of companions. Companions range in pre-CE mass from 12–20 M, in radius from 100–1100 R, and have convective envelopes. CE events initiated with smaller radius companions than those plotted (for a given mass) result in merger rather than envelope ejection. All evolutions computed result in NSs surviving CE, with none expected to undergo accretion-induced collapse to a BH. NSs generally gain more mass in interactions with more massive companions, but very extended radius at the onset of CE can lead to less mass accumulation. To compute the right-hand axis, we assume material is accreted from a Keplerian disk, and that adopt median NS properties of MNS ≈ 1.39 M, RNS = 12 km. NSs undergoing these CE episodes survive to find themselves in close partnerships with helium-rich companions and orbital periods ranging from hours to days.

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