On the role of recombination in common-envelope ejections

TL;DR

This study explores how the timing and location of energy transfer, especially recombination energy, influence the dynamical outcomes of common-envelope events, revealing that rapid energy transfer and deep heating lead to instability and potential envelope ejection.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the outcome of common-envelope events depends more on energy transfer rate and location than on total energy, highlighting the limited role of recombination energy in wide orbit formation.

Findings

Envelope becomes dynamically unstable before energy equals initial binding energy.

Recombination energy mainly drives envelope expansion and instability.

Deep heating leads to more effective envelope ejection.

Abstract

The energy budget in common-envelope events (CEEs) is not well understood, with substantial uncertainty even over to what extent the recombination energy stored in ionised hydrogen and helium might be used to help envelope ejection. We investigate the reaction of a red-giant envelope to heating which mimics limiting cases of energy input provided by the orbital decay of a binary during a CEE, specifically during the post-plunge-in phase during which the spiral-in has been argued to occur on a time-scale longer than dynamical. We show that the outcome of such a CEE depends less on the total amount of energy by which the envelope is heated than on how rapidly the energy was transferred to the envelope and on where the envelope was heated. The envelope always becomes dynamically unstable before receiving net heat energy equal to the envelope's initial binding energy. We find two types of outcome, both of which likely lead to at least partial envelope ejection: "runaway" solutions in which the expansion of the radius becomes undeniably dynamical, and superficially "self-regulated" solutions, in which the expansion of the stellar radius stops but a significant fraction of the envelope becomes formally dynamically unstable. Almost the entire reservoir of initial helium recombination energy is used for envelope expansion. Hydrogen recombination is less energetically useful, but is nonetheless important for the development of the dynamical instabilities. However, this result requires the companion to have already plunged deep into the envelope; therefore this release of recombination energy does not help to explain wide post-common-envelope orbits.