A&A 388, 546-551 (2002)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20020518
L. R. Yungelson1,2 - G. Nelemans3 - E. P. J. van den Heuvel2
1 - Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of
Sciences, 48 Pyatnitskaya Str., 119017 Moscow, Russia
2 -
Astronomical Institute "Anton Pannekoek'',
Kruislaan 403, 1098 SJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
3 -
Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge,
Madingley Road, CB3 0HA, Cambridge, UK
Received 21 December 2001 / Accepted 3 April 2002
Abstract
We study the formation of neon-enriched donor stars in ultracompact X-ray
binaries
min) and show that their progenitors have to be low-mass (0.3-0.4)
"hybrid'' white dwarfs (with CO
cores and thick helium mantles). Stable mass transfer is possible if in the initial
stages of mass exchange mass is lost from the system, taking away
the specific orbital angular momentum of the accretor ("isotropic
re-emission''). The excess of neon in the transferred matter is due
to chemical fractionation of the white dwarf
which has to occur prior to the Roche lobe overflow by the donor. The estimated lower limit of the orbital periods of the systems with neon-enriched donors is close to 10 min.
We show that the X-ray pulsar 4U 1626-67, which likely also has a
neon-enriched companion, may have been formed via accretion induced
collapse of an oxygen-neon white dwarf accretor if the donor was a
hybrid white dwarf.
Key words: stars: white dwarfs - stars: mass loss - stars: abundances - binaries: close - X-rays: binaries
Below, we explore the evolution of white dwarfs which fill their Roche lobes having neutron star companions. We discuss the mechanism of mass exchange and limiting masses of the donors in these binaries in Sect. 2. The process of chemical fractionation that could lead to Ne-enrichment is briefly outlined in Sect. 2.3. The observed systems are discussed in Sect. 3. Some uncertainties of the model and related problems are considered in Sect. 4. Our conclusions follow in Sect. 5.
After pioneering work of Paczynski (1967) on the ultrashort-period
(18 min) cataclysmic variable AM CVn, it is commonly accepted that
the donors in semi-detached systems with the orbital periods of several tens of
minutes may be degenerate dwarfs and that the driving force of the binary
evolution is angular momentum loss (AML) due to gravitational wave radiation
(GWR).
The basic features of the scenario for the formation of (wd, ns) systems
which can evolve into ultracompact X-ray binaries may be summarized as follows (see e.g. Tutukov & Yungelson 1993; Iben et al. 1995, for details).
In the Galactic disk
stars with masses >10
that are born in binaries evolve
into neutron stars, experiencing underway one or two common envelope
stages which strongly decrease the orbital separation. Next, their companions experience dynamically unstable mass
loss and become white dwarfs. If
the resulting systems have orbital
separation
,
AML via GWR may bring the white dwarf to Roche-lobe overflow (RLOF)
within the lifetime of the Galactic
disk and under certain conditions (see below) stable mass
exchange leading to exposure of the Ne-enriched core may ensue.
![]() |
Figure 1:
The solid line shows the mass loss rate from a white dwarf
"stabilised'' by isotropic re-emission for the case of a system which
initially contained a 0.83 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Open with DEXTER |
In globular clusters neutron stars most probably acquire their companions via exchange interactions with primordial binaries (e.g. Rasio et al. 2000). The subsequent evolution is similar to that of the disk binaries.
Figure 1 shows this mass loss rate
for a (wd, ns) system with initial masses of donor and accretor
and
,
respectively
. Since
all white dwarfs approach zero-temperature radii after cooling for several
100 Myr (Panei et al. 2000) and since most systems will be very much older than this
when their orbits have decayed sufficiently to start mass transfer, we use in
our computations the mass - radius (M-R) relation for cold spheres
derived by Zapolsky & Salpeter (1969) in the form given by Rappaport et al. (1987), assuming equal
mass fractions of carbon and oxygen. For this M-R relation, if the mass
retention efficiency of the accretor is close to zero, (wd, ns) systems with
are dynamically unstable.
All matter in excess of
can be lost from the system only
if the liberated accretion energy of the matter falling from the Roche lobe
radius of the neutron star to the neutron star surface is sufficient to expel
the matter from the Roche-lobe surface around the neutron star, i.e.
,
where
is the radius of the neutron star (King & Begelman 1999; Tauris et al. 2000). The
dependence of
on the mass of the donor is also plotted
in Fig. 1. Since the mass-loss line in Fig. 1 holds
as well for initial
,
within our assumptions
"isotropic re-emission'' from a neutron star is actually possible for donors
with initial
.
Unless there is an even more
efficient way to stabilise the mass transfer than by "re-emission'', this
excludes ONe white dwarfs as donors as these have
(Gil-Pons & García-Berro 2001). Similarly also massive CO dwarfs are excluded as donors.
The overabundance (relative to solar) of Ne
suggests, that the progenitors of the donors in the X-ray systems under
consideration have experienced core helium burning including the
reactions
chain. Thus the donors cannot be low-mass helium white dwarfs.
This leaves as the last option the so called "hybrid'' white dwarfs which have CO cores and thick He mantles.
They are formed from components of close binaries with
initial masses in the range
from 2.5 to 5
which experience RLOF prior to core He ignition,
become He-burning stars and, after completion of core He burning, evolve directly into white dwarfs.
Their mass is
(Iben & Tutukov 1985; Han et al. 2000).
In a calculation of the model of the population of compact
stars in the Galaxy (Nelemans et al. 2001) the birthrate of such (wd, ns)
systems with
is
yr-1. For comparison, the birthrate of progenitors of
X-ray binaries with hydrogen-rich donors in the same model is
yr-1.
Even after core helium exhaustion the abundance of Ne in the cores of hybrid
white dwarfs is low, so to observe the strong Ne enrichment, the cores have to
be crystallised and fractionated. In the models of white dwarfs these
processes take several Gyr,
depending on the mass of the dwarf, transparency of the outer layers, total
amount of
and uncertainties in phase diagrams
(Hernanz et al. 1994; Montgomery et al. 1999). Figure 2 shows that the orbital periods
of (wd, ns) pairs enter the observed range of
10 min in less than
10 Myr. (The meaning of the lines and asterisks in Fig. 2 is the
same as in Fig. 1.)
Hence, the enrichment of the white dwarf core
by Ne, must have happened before RLOF.
For an initial metallicity Z=0.02, after
completion of He-burning,
the mass abundance of
in the core of the star cannot be larger than
.
During crystallisation of binary mixtures of (C/Ne) and (O/Ne), Ne settles in the center and forms a Ne-enriched nucleus which
contains all
formed in the dwarf and has the so called azeotropic abundance
of Ne (Isern et al. 1991).
The mass of this Ne-rich nucleus is
If the white dwarf didn't have enough time to crystallise, the mass loss
uncovers material of the convective core of the progenitor of the dwarf. Then
the mass fraction of Ne may be down to the initial 0.001.
![]() |
Figure 2:
Orbital period - mass loss rate relation for a system which
initially contained a 0.38 ![]() ![]() |
Open with DEXTER |
Figure 2 shows the evolution of a semidetached system
which initially contained a "hybrid'' white dwarf and a neutron star,
in orbital period - mass loss rate coordinates. Taking the mass of the Ne-enriched core of 0.06
estimated in Sect.
2.3 as typical, one obtains a rough lower limit of
the orbital periods of binaries with the Ne-rich white dwarf donors of
about 10 min. The white dwarf enters the range of periods (or masses)
for which Ne-enrichment is possible in several Myr
following the onset of RLOF
(Fig. 2).
Our calculations of the mass loss rate also give the mass of the donor
as a function of the orbital period. We thus infer the donor masses for 4U
1850-0857 and 4U 1626-67 to be 0.027 and 0.01 ,
respectively (see more detailed discussion of the latter system in Sect. 3.2).
The abundance of Ne relative to solar found in the observed Ne-rich X-ray
binaries ranges from
to
.
For oxygen an
underabundance is reported:
to
.
Taken at face
value, these relative abundances translate into a local Ne/O ratio of 0.63-0.77. If true, these values are considerably higher than one would expect for
the above used abundance of Ne in the nucleus of the dwarf
.
But Isern et al. (1991) notice, that
may be well underestimated by a factor
3. If this is true, the Ne/O ratio comes into better agreement with
observed values. The mass of the Ne-enriched core then becomes slightly higher
than 0.02
,
still comparable with our estimates of the masses of the
white dwarfs in 4U 1850-0857 and 4U 1626-67.
The problem of a low predicted Ne/O ratio would also hold for initially more massive donors,
if stable mass loss would be possible for them. In the core of a
1.1
ONe dwarf the Ne/O ratio is
0.4 (Gil-Pons & García-Berro 2001).
For a "standard'' 0.6
CO white dwarf with an initially
equimolar distribution of C/O and traces of Ne, a final Ne/O ratio
0.25 is expected in the core (Segretain et al. 1994).
All four Ne-enriched X-ray binaries contain, presumably, weakly magnetised neutron stars. This may be a result of the decay of the magnetic field by accretion (Taam & van de Heuvel 1986).
The high magnetic field strength suggests that the neutron star is young and
accretion was negligible. The absence of enhanced abundances of O-group
elements in the spectrum of 4U 1626-67 argues against the origin of the neutron
star in a SN II event (Angelini et al. 1995). Taam & van de Heuvel (1986) suggested that this X-ray
pulsar was formed recently -
yrs ago - by an accretion
induced collapse (AIC) of a white dwarf. Verbunt et al. (1990) rejected the AIC model,
based on the argument that the time between AIC and resumption of mass
transfer is
108 yr, longer than then assumed e-folding decay time
(
107 yr) for the magnetic fields of neutron stars. Later, the
analysis of magnetic fields of isolated radio pulsars have shown that the magnetic
field decay scale is probably
yr (Bhattacharya et al. 1992). This, along with
the discovery of Ne-enrichment in the system, suggests that one should
reconsider the formation of 4U 1626-67 via AIC, especially, since the details
of pre-collapse evolution were never studied before.
In the model for the population of compact stars in the Galaxy (Nelemans et al. 2001)
the birthrate of ONe white dwarfs with
accompanied by
"hybrid'' white dwarfs with
which get into
contact within 10 Gyr is
yr-1. This rate is within the
limits for occurrence of AIC's in the Galaxy set by nucleosynthesis
considerations (Fryer et al. 1999).
![]() |
Figure 3:
Solid line - mass exchange rate in a system which
initially consisted of a 0.38 ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Open with DEXTER |
The initial binary may contain e.g. a 0.38
"hybrid'' white dwarf (for
which we know the internal structure from Iben & Tutukov 1985) and a 1.2
oxygen-neon one (Fig. 3). At the beginning of the RLOF
min. The outer 0.12
of the donor consist of He. The maximum
rate of stable He-burning at the surface of a massive white dwarf is about
(Kato & Hachisu 1999), lower than the mass loss rate by the donor in the
initial stages of mass transfer.
Mass exchange in this case may be also
stabilised by isotropic re-emission of optically thick wind from accretor,
generated by He-burning (Hachisu et al. 1996). Therefore stable helium burning is
likely to set in on the surface of the 1.2
accreting white dwarf.
Like Verbunt et al. (1990), we assume that the white dwarf collapses into a 1.26
neutron star after the increase in mass to 1.44
.
This happens after
240 Myrs of accretion, when
s. The mass of
the donor is at that moment 0.0132
.
The Ne/O ratio in the core for
azeotropic abundance of Ne (0.1 to 0.3, see Sect. 2.3) doesn't contradict
the measured Ne/O ratio in 4U 1626-67 (Schulz et al. 2001):
.
The collapse interrupts mass transfer for
yr due to the
loss of binding energy of the dwarf (see for details Verbunt et al. 1990). This time
span may not be sufficient for the decay of the magnetic field of the pulsar.
When after resumption of the contact the period of the system has increased to
41.4 min, the mass of the donor is 0.0101
.
Until this moment the neutron star in our model system has
lived after the AIC for about 350 Myr. If magnetic fields
do not decay on long time scale its field will not have decayed sufficiently.
The accretion of 0.003
onto a neutron star is most probably
insufficient for destruction of its magnetic field (if the frozen
field and incompressible fluid approximations (Cheng & Zhang 1998) are assumed). Assuming solid body rotation and
conservation of angular momentum, one gets
1.3 ms for the
initial spin period of the neutron star. The present spin
period of the neutron star in 4U 1626-67 is 7.7 s, close to the
"death-line'' of radio pulsars for
G
(Bhattacharya 1996). Thus, it is conceivable that 4U 1626-67 harbours a
neutron star which ceased to be a radio pulsar, but didn't
experience recycling.
At the stage when our model system resembles 4U 1626-67,
the mass exchange rate is
.
As already noticed before (Chakrabarty 1998; Schulz et al. 2001), all model
for 4U 1626-67 based on M-R relations are
considerably lower than
the estimates of
based on the observed spin-up rate and simple
angular momentum conservation considerations.
It is plausible that the secular
is consistent
with model expectations, while mass transfer rate
inferred from the observed
spin-up of the pulsar (if correct) reflects the accretion rate from an
unstable accretion disk (Schulz et al. 2001). The latter experiences thermal ionization instability if
and
,
for a pure C or O disk, respectively (Menou et al. 2002).
On the other hand, according to
Segretain (1996), if a 0.6
white dwarf is considered as a ternary mixture with
,
almost all Ne concentrates in a thin layer around
.
Then spilling of Ne-enriched
matter over the neutron star would require extremely fine tuning of
the model.
Another intriguing problem concerns X-ray bursts. They were reported
for 4U 0614+091, 2S 0918-549, and 4U 1850-0857.
None of the bursts have shown atypical behaviour (Juett et al. 2001).
Carbon flashes at
were never studied.
Extrapolation of the calculations of Cumming & Bildsten (2001) over 2 orders of
magnitude may be not very relevant.
However, it shows
that for
,
characteristic for
"hybrid'' dwarfs and
,
accreted carbon
possibly burns stably. Thus, the
origin of the bursts in systems with any low-mass C-rich donors
deserves further attention.
We have shown that within the framework of the white dwarfs cooling
model developed by
Isern et al. (1991), Bravo et al. (1992), Segretain et al. (1994), Hernanz et al. (1994)
it is possible to explain the formation of the
Ne-enriched donors in X-ray binaries if their progenitors were low-mass CO white
dwarfs with thick He mantles. A necessary condition is that the
white dwarfs had enough time to be substantially chemically
fractionated. This means that the mass transfer had to start several
Gyr after the formation of the white dwarfs. We estimate that the masses of Ne-rich donors in these systems are
and their orbital periods have to be
10 min.
The expected Ne/O ratios are
.
Finally we conclude that the X-ray pulsar 4U 1626-67 could follow an evolutionary path similar to the other Ne-rich systems, with the only
difference that it used to have a massive ONe white dwarf component that collapsed into a neutron star relatively recently.
We estimate the current mass of the donor in this system as 0.01 .
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge fruitful discussions with A. Kudrjashoff, O. Pols, G.-J. Savonije, E. García-Berro, J. Isern, R. Ramachandran. Our thanks a due to Z. Han for communicating his unpublished results. LRY acknowledges the warm hospitality and support of the Astronomical Institute "Anton Pannekoek''. This work was supported by a NOVA grant, NWO Spinoza grant 08-0 to E. P. J. van den Heuvel, and "Astronomy'' Program.