[Mesa-users] runaway mass transfer in WD-WD binary

[Kareem El-Badry]

Hi Sunny,

Thanks so much for that suggestion, I think you're right! The mass transfer
rates were ~10^-7 Msun/yr, higher than in the rest of the binary's
evolution, but not catastrophic. I make it through the period minimum if I
set use_dedt_form_of_energy_eqn = .false. and use_eps_mdot = .false.
and use_gold_tolerances = .false.
(If I leave use_gold_tolerances = .true. I still get the problem).

The tradeoff is that with these settings, rel_run_E_err slowly builds to
uncomfortably large values (more than 1 by the end of the calculation). I
will play around with this more.

Kareem

On Wed, Sep 2, 2020 at 8:41 PM <twong31 at physics.ucsb.edu> wrote:

> Hi Kareem,
>
> What is the mass transfer rate when you run into this issue?
>
> The mass transfer should be stable like you said, so I think the problem
> may have to do with the Newton solver. Does
> setting use_dedt_form_of_energy_eqn = .false. (and use_eps_mdot = .false.)
> help?
>
> Hope this helps,
> Sunny
>
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