[Mesa-users] Mass loss in conservative mass transfer

[Neev Shah]

Hi,

I am trying to run fully conservative mass transfer using the template in
$MESA_DIR/binary/work (mesa version mesa-24.08.1). I believe the winds are
set to 0, and the mass transfer parameters are also set to 0. I have turned
off the eddington limit to allow for conservative mass transfer
(limit_retention_by_mdot_edd = .false.). Initially, I kept the secondary as
a point particle (evolve_both_stars = .false.) and it led to some mass loss
from the system during mass transfer (figures below where I can see that
dm2/dt is smaller than dm1/dt during mass transfer) and I am not sure why
that is happening.

[image: image.png]
[image: image.png]

I checked that by evolving the secondary as well (evolve_both_stars =
.true.), the mass loss disappears and the system is fully conservative
(figures below). The only difference between the 2 runs was that I changed
evolve_both_stars from .false. to .true.

[image: image.png]
[image: image.png]

Is there any reason for why there is mass loss when treating the secondary
as a point particle?

I have attached my inlists in the tarball below. My system had a donor mass
of 15, accretor mass of 10, and an initial orbital period of 20 days.

Thank you!

Best,
Neev Shah (he/him)
Astronomy PhD student
Steward Observatory
University of Arizona
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