• DOI:10.1093/mnras/stac3313
• Corpus ID: 253265125

White dwarf binaries suggest a common envelope efficiency α ∼ 1/3

@article{Scherbak2022WhiteDB,
  title={White dwarf binaries suggest a common envelope efficiency $\alpha$ ∼ 1/3},
  author={P. N. Scherbak and Jim Fuller},
  journal={Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
  year={2022}
}

• P. Scherbak, J. Fuller
• Published 3 November 2022
• Physics, Geology
• Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Common envelope (CE) evolution, which is crucial in creating short period binaries and associated astrophysical events, can be constrained by reverse modeling of such binaries’ formation histories. Through analysis of a sample of well-constrained white dwarf (WD) binaries with low-mass primaries (7 eclipsing double WDs, 2 non-eclipsing double WDs, 1 WD-brown dwarf), we estimate the CE energy efficiency αCE needed to unbind the hydrogen envelope. We use grids of He- and CO-core WD models to…