Open AccessOn rejuvenation in massive binary systems
Author(s) -
Dray Lynnette M.,
Tout Christopher A.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.11431.x
Subject(s) - physics , astrophysics , metallicity , stars , accretion (finance) , binary star , stellar evolution , binary number , stellar mass , divergence (linguistics) , astronomy , star formation , arithmetic , mathematics , linguistics , philosophy
We introduce a set of stellar models for massive stars whose evolution has been affected by mass transfer in a binary system, at a range of metallicities. As noted by other authors, the effect of such mass transfer is frequently more than just rejuvenation. We find that, whilst stars with convective cores which have accreted only H‐rich matter rejuvenate as expected, those stars which have accreted He‐rich matter (e.g. at the end stages of conservative mass transfer) evolve in a way that is qualitatively similar to rejuvenated stars of much higher metallicity. Thus, the effects of non‐conservative evolution depend strongly on whether He‐rich matter is amongst the portion accreted or ejected. This may lead to a significant divergence in binary evolution paths with only a small difference in initial assumptions. We compare our models to observed systems and find approximate formulae for the effect of mass accretion on the effective age and metallicity of the resulting star.