Top panel: radius of bubbles outside the jet (yellow), right after penetrating the jet (green) and at stagnation (blue) compared to the radius of the jet, as a function of jet height. Bottom panel: mass within bubbles of radius R_out (yellow), and R_in (green), as a function of jet height. Parameters used are L_j = 10⁴⁴ erg s⁻¹, Γ_j = 10 and the orbital values given in Sect. 2.2. Values for both a red giant of average mass-loss rate (solid line) and a red giant that generates the dominant events (dashed line, see Sect. 5.2) are plotted.