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An extended gravitational object embedded in a parent system comprised of gasand collisionless particles may undergo both dynamical friction (DF) and massloss by tidal forces. If the object is compact enough, it can increase its massthrough accretion of material from the surrounding medium. We extend theclassical linear analysis of DF on a constant-mass body in a gaseous medium tothe case where its mass changes with time. We show that the structure of thewake may differ significantly from the constant-mass case. For instance, thefront-back symmetry of density about subsonic constant-mass perturbers isbroken down for variable-mass perturbers. The density wake keeps a memory ofthe past mass history of the perturber. For dissolving perturbers, the densityfield is more dense than expected using the instantaneous mass of the perturberin the classical formula. As a consequence, the instantaneous-massapproximation underestimates the drag force for mass-losing perturbers andoverestimates it for mass-gaining perturbers. We present cases in which thepercentage error in the drag force using the instantaneous-mass approximationis greater than 50%.

Gaseous wakes and dynamical friction: mass-losing and mass-gaining perturbers