Eesha Das Gupta

In 2020, Emma Beasor and collaborators provided a novel mass loss prescription for Red Supergiant (RSG) stars in terms of their initial masses, in addition to their luminosities. Their paper reported lower rates for these stars than previously thought, implying significant consequences for their evolutionary history and compact object fate. However, things get complicated if binary interactions are brought into the mix. Binary stars can gain or lose mass and can change evolutionary tracks on the HR diagram, taking on paths not expected of their single star counterparts. HR Diagram evolutionary paths are very much dictated by initial mass. So what happens when a lower mass loss rate that depends on initial mass, is introduced to the system? What does that mean for the compact objects these stars would form? Does that impact mergers and would it be of importance for something like LIGO - a detector well suited for measuring gravitational waves for compact object mergers? I used COSMIC,a binary population synthesis code, to investigate this by modifying the mass loss prescription for Red Supergiant stars. Stay tuned for a paper!