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Massive stars are the progenitors of black holes and neutron stars, themergers of which can be detected with gravitational waves (GW). The expansionof massive stars is one of the key factors affecting their evolution in closebinary systems, but it remains subject to large uncertainties in stellarastrophysics. For population studies and predictions of GW sources, the stellarexpansion is often simulated with the analytic formulae from Hurley et al.(2000). These formulae need to be extrapolated for stars beyond 50 solar massesand are often considered outdated. In this work we present five differentprescriptions developed from 1D stellar models to constrain the maximumexpansion of massive stars. We adopt these prescriptions to investigate howstellar expansion affects mass transfer interactions and in turn the formationof GW sources. We show that limiting radial expansion with updated 1D stellarmodels, when compared to the use of Hurley et al. (2000) radial expansionformulae, does not significantly affect GW source properties (rates andmasses). This is because most mass transfer events leading to GW sources areinitialised before the donor star reaches its maximum expansion. The onlysignificant difference was found for the mass distribution of massive binaryblack hole mergers (total mass > 50 solar masses) formed from stars that mayevolve beyond the Humphreys-Davidson limit, whose radial expansion is the mostuncertain. We conclude that understanding the expansion of massive stars andthe origin of the Humphrey-Davidson limit is a key factor for the study of GWsources.

The role of stellar expansion on the formation of gravitational wave sources