The impact of envelope binding energies on the merger rate density of binary compact objects
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| Autori principali: | , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Natura: | Preprint |
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2026
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| author | Sgalletta, Cecilia Costa, Guglielmo Iorio, Giuliano Shepherd, Kendall Addari, Francesco Trani, Alessandro A. Mapelli, Michela di Carlo, Ugo N. Lapi, Andrea Bressan, Alessandro Spera, Mario |
| author_facet | Sgalletta, Cecilia Costa, Guglielmo Iorio, Giuliano Shepherd, Kendall Addari, Francesco Trani, Alessandro A. Mapelli, Michela di Carlo, Ugo N. Lapi, Andrea Bressan, Alessandro Spera, Mario |
| contents | The common envelope (CE) phase plays a key role in the formation of binary compact object systems. Its final outcome strongly depends on the envelope binding energy, but this quantity is often estimated using fitting formulas that are not fully consistent with the underlying stellar evolution models adopted in population-synthesis codes. Here, we investigate envelope binding energies across the most extensive stellar grid considered to date. Our stellar tracks, evolved with PARSEC v2.0, include hydrogen (H) -rich stars with metallicities ranging from $Z = 10^{-11}$ (Population III stars) to $Z = 0.03$, and initial masses between 2 and 2000 M$_\odot$, as well as pure-helium stars with masses from 0.36 to 350 M$_\odot$. We examine the sensitivity of the envelope binding energies to the selected core-envelope boundary definition and to different internal energy source contributions. For H-rich stars, we find that internal energy sources can alter the envelope binding energy by more than an order of magnitude, whereas the core boundary criteria play a secondary role. In contrast, for pure helium stars, the core-boundary criterion becomes the dominant factor. The envelope binding energies derived from different stellar tracks can show deviations of several orders of magnitude, with larger differences for more massive stars and higher metallicities.Finally, by implementing our new envelope binding energy prescriptions into the binary population synthesis code SEVN, we show that the predicted merger rate densities of compact binaries can differ by more than an order of magnitude compared to previous models. Our results highlight the importance of using envelope binding energies that are consistent with the underlying stellar evolution models and caution against extrapolating empirical fits beyond the considered parameter space. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_06807 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The impact of envelope binding energies on the merger rate density of binary compact objects Sgalletta, Cecilia Costa, Guglielmo Iorio, Giuliano Shepherd, Kendall Addari, Francesco Trani, Alessandro A. Mapelli, Michela di Carlo, Ugo N. Lapi, Andrea Bressan, Alessandro Spera, Mario Solar and Stellar Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena The common envelope (CE) phase plays a key role in the formation of binary compact object systems. Its final outcome strongly depends on the envelope binding energy, but this quantity is often estimated using fitting formulas that are not fully consistent with the underlying stellar evolution models adopted in population-synthesis codes. Here, we investigate envelope binding energies across the most extensive stellar grid considered to date. Our stellar tracks, evolved with PARSEC v2.0, include hydrogen (H) -rich stars with metallicities ranging from $Z = 10^{-11}$ (Population III stars) to $Z = 0.03$, and initial masses between 2 and 2000 M$_\odot$, as well as pure-helium stars with masses from 0.36 to 350 M$_\odot$. We examine the sensitivity of the envelope binding energies to the selected core-envelope boundary definition and to different internal energy source contributions. For H-rich stars, we find that internal energy sources can alter the envelope binding energy by more than an order of magnitude, whereas the core boundary criteria play a secondary role. In contrast, for pure helium stars, the core-boundary criterion becomes the dominant factor. The envelope binding energies derived from different stellar tracks can show deviations of several orders of magnitude, with larger differences for more massive stars and higher metallicities.Finally, by implementing our new envelope binding energy prescriptions into the binary population synthesis code SEVN, we show that the predicted merger rate densities of compact binaries can differ by more than an order of magnitude compared to previous models. Our results highlight the importance of using envelope binding energies that are consistent with the underlying stellar evolution models and caution against extrapolating empirical fits beyond the considered parameter space. |
| title | The impact of envelope binding energies on the merger rate density of binary compact objects |
| topic | Solar and Stellar Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.06807 |