A Be Star + He Star Binary as an Indicator of a Binary Mass Transfer Phase

TL;DR

This study uses binary population synthesis to analyze Be star + He star binaries, revealing insights into mass transfer processes and their relation to binary evolution, with implications for understanding rapid rotation origins.

Contribution

It introduces an updated binary mass transfer stability criterion and explores how BeHe binary properties reflect initial binary conditions, advancing binary evolution modeling.

Findings

Mass ratios of BeHe binaries can probe initial binary mass ratios.

Higher mass transfer efficiency ($ 0.5$) aligns better with observations.

Predicted excess of Case B mass transfer Be binaries suggests observational biases or physical uncertainties.

Abstract

The rapid rotation of Be stars is supposed to mainly originate from binary evolution. In recent years, more and more Be stars with helium (He) star companions have been discovered, which provides a significant opportunity to study binary interaction physics. In this work, we perform binary population synthesis with an updated binary mass transfer stability criterion and try to understand the details of mass transfer processes by constructing a series of Be star + He star (BeHe) binary populations. We found that the simulations and the observations can be divided into two groups according to the masses of components, corresponding to the two distinct evolutionary processes during the mass transfer. In particular, we found that the mass ratios of BeHe binaries may be taken as a probe of the initial mass ratios of the primordial binaries. Moreover, the results suggest that a higher mass transfer efficiency ($\gtrsim 0.5$) supports the observations better. The simulations predicted too many Be star binaries experiencing Case B mass transfer, which conflicts with the observations. The reason is due to either observational selection effects or unclear physical factors.