Influence of a mass transfer stability criterion on double white dwarf populations

Abstract

Mass transfer stability is an essential issue in binary evolution. Ge et al. studied critical mass ratios for dynamically stable mass transfer by establishing adiabatic mass loss model and found that the donor stars on the giant branches tend to be more stable than that based on the composite polytropic stellar model. We would investigate the influence of mass transfer stability on the formation and properties of DWD populations. We performed a series of binary population synthesis, where the critical mass ratios from adiabatic mass loss model (Ge's model) and that from the composite polytropic model are adopted, respectively. For Ge's model, most of the DWDs are produced from the stable non-conservative Roche lobe overflow plus common envelope (CE) ejection channel (RL+CE channel) regardless of the CE ejection efficiency $α_{CE}$. While the results of the polytropic model strongly depend on the adopted value of $α_{ CE}$. We find DWDs produced from the RL+CE channel have comparable WD masses and the mass ratio distribution peaks at around 1. Based on the magnitude-limited sample of DWDs, the space densities for the detectable DWDs and those with extremely low-mass WD (ELM WD) companions in Ge's model is $1347$ and $473 kpc^{-3}$, respectively, close to observations. While the polytropic model overpredicts space density of DWDs by a factor of about $2-3$. We also find that the results of DWD merger rate distribution in Ge's model reproduce the observations better than that of the polytropic model, and the merger rate of DWDs with ELM WD companions in the Galaxy is about $1.8\times 10^{-3} yr^{-1}$ in Ge's model, which is comparable to the observation estimation. We confirm that the mass transfer stability plays important roles in the formation and properties of DWD populations, and then in the progenitors of SNe Ia and detectable GW sources.