[Mesa-users] Mass loss in conservative mass transfer

[Natasha Ivanova]

Hi,

I also bumped into it at some point.

Default MESA assumes that another star is a BH, so the accretion rate is
corrected for radiation losses without you realizing that. Roughly 10% goes
away.

if you do

use_radiation_corrected_transfer_rate = .fasle.

I think it will conserve mass properly.

Best
Natasha

On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 2:26 PM Neev Shah via Mesa-users <
mesa-users at lists.mesastar.org> wrote:

> 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
> _______________________________________________
> mesa-users at lists.mesastar.org
> https://lists.mesastar.org/mailman/listinfo/mesa-users
>
>
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