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V1309 Sco was proposed to be a stellar merger and a common envelope transientbased on the pre-outburst light curve of a contact eclipsing binary with arapidly decaying orbital period. Using published data, I show that the perioddecay timescale P/Pdot of V1309 Sco decreased from ~1000 to ~170 years in lessthan about 6 years, which implies a very high value of second periodderivative. I argue that V1309 Sco experienced an onset of dynamical mass lossthrough the outer Lagrange point, which eventually obscured the binary. Thephotosphere of the resulting continuous optically-thick outflow expands as themass-loss rate increases, explaining the ~200 day rise to optical maximum. Themodel yields the mass-loss rate of the binary star as a function of time andfits the observed light curve remarkably well. It is also possible toobservationally constrain the properties of the surface layers undergoing thedynamical mass loss. V1309 Sco is thus a prototype of a new class of stellartransients distinguished by a slow rise to optical maximum that are driven bydynamical mass loss from a binary. I discuss implications of these findings forstellar transients and other suggested common envelope events.

Burying a Binary: Dynamical Mass Loss and a Continuous Optically-Thick Outflow Explain the Candidate Stellar Merger V1309 Scorpii