Mass transfer in binary stars using smoothed particle hydrodynamics. I. numerical method

Abstract

Close interactions and mass transfer in binary stars can lead to the formation of many different exotic stellar populations, but detailed modeling of mass transfer is a computationally challenging problem. Here, we present an alternate smoothed particle hydrodynamics approach to the modeling of mass transfer in binary systems that allows a better resolution of the flow of matter between main-sequence stars. Our approach consists of modeling only the outermost layers of the stars using appropriate boundary conditions and ghost particles.We arbitrarily set the radius of the boundary and find that our boundary treatment behaves physically and conserves energy well. In particular, when used with our binary relaxation procedure, our treatment of boundary conditions is also shown to evolve circular binaries properly for many orbits. The results of our first simulation of mass transfer are also discussed and used to assess the strengths and limitations of our method. We conclude that it is well suited for the modeling of interacting binary stars. The method presented here represents a convenient alternative to previous hydrodynamical techniques aimed at modeling mass transfer in binary systems since it can be used to model both the donor and the accretor while maintaining the density profiles taken from realistic stellar models. © 2011 The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.