Stability diagram for neutron stars (left panel) and black holes (right panel) in the (P_orb, Ṁ) plane. Data points taken from Coriat et al. (2012) and the WATCHDOG catalogue (Tetarenko et al. 2016), with open and filled circles representing stable and unstable systems, respectively. In each panel, the two straight grey lines show the stability limits for the standard unirradiated (top line) and irradiated (bottom line, with 𝒞 = 10⁻³) discs. The red line shows the stability limit on Ṁ_in with a thermal wind and a self-consistent determination of 𝒞. The yellow line shows the same but on the mass transfer rate Ṁ_t = Ṁ_w + Ṁ_in. The limits are calculated for a 1.4 M_⊙ neutron star and a 10 M_⊙ black hole. The thickness of the lines illustrates how the stability criterion changes when the mass ratio of the secondary star to the compact object q changes from 0.1 to 1.