Understanding the impact of binary mass transfer in the accretor's measurable parameters

TL;DR

This paper introduces an analytical model to study how direct mass transfer in binary systems affects the accretor's measurable parameters, revealing that such transfer is inefficient at spinning up the star and allows significant mass gain without reaching critical rotation.

Contribution

The work presents a novel two-body analytical model for direct mass transfer, quantifying its effects on the accretor's parameters and mass conservation across different orbital configurations.

Findings

Direct mass transfer is inefficient at spinning up the accretor.

Systems with tighter orbits and higher donor spin are more mass-conservative.

Higher eccentricity systems tend to conserve mass more effectively.

Abstract

Binaries and higher order systems can experience mass transfer events between their components. The angular momentum carried by the gained mass can change the observable parameters of the accretor and spin it up to critical rotation. In this work, we aim to explore the spin-up effect of direct accretion through a stream as a possible mechanism for an accretor to gain more than a tenth of its initial mass without acquiring enough momentum to reach critical rotation. We present a novel analytical model to characterize the effects of direct mass transfer on the accretor's measurable parameters as a function of the binary's semi-major axis and eccentricity and the donor's rotation velocity. This model takes a two-body approach to the problem, where a stream is decomposed as many discrete particles that do not interact with each other and are influenced by the accretor's gravitational potential only. Each parcel has an instant orbital solution derived from its initial conditions. The contribution each accreted parcel has to the total spin-up of the accretor is given by its tangential velocity at impact, through conservation of angular momentum. Direct mass transfer proves to be inefficient at spinning up the accretor and thus enables the star to gain a great fraction of its initial mass without reaching critical rotation. We also quantify the fraction of mass that directly impacts the accretor in contrast to the mass that is either lost from the system or creates a disk around a star. Our results show that systems are the most mass-conservative when the orbit is tighter or when the donor's spin is greater. In terms of eccentricity, the conservation of mass shows mixed results depending on the system's other initial properties. However, systems with higher eccentricity are consistently a hundred percent conservative within our parameter space.