Erratum: Supernovae in Binary Systems

Interferometric Observations of RS Ophiuchi and the Origin of the Near‐Infrared Emission

“…The second possibility is that the blast wave from the nova impacts the red giant with sufficient momentum to strip off a portion of the companion atmosphere. Such scenarios have been studied in the context of supernovae (Marietta et al 2000;Wheeler et al 1976), and it has been shown that considerable mass stripping will occur. However, the greatly reduced energy available in novae limits the magnitude of this effect.…”

“…However, the greatly reduced energy available in novae limits the magnitude of this effect. Assuming a blast wave velocity of 3000 km.s −1 and mass of ∼ 5 × 10 −7 M ⊙ (Sokoloski et al 2006), and a RG radius of ∼ 30R ⊙ , mass of ∼ 0.7M ⊙ and the orbital separation ∼ 320R ⊙ (Hachisu & Kato 2006), and using Eqns 8 & 9 from Wheeler et al (1976), we find that their parameter Ψ ∼ 5 × 10 −8 (Ψ is essentially the ratio of the momentum of the portion of the blast wave that impacts the companion to the momentum required to move the companion at its own escape velocity). Wheeler et al (1976) find that the fraction of mass stripped from the companion is ∝ Ψ 3 ; hence we conclude that the amount of mass stripped from the RG is essentially negligible.…”

Constraints on the Stellar Mass Function from Stellar Dynamics at the Galactic Center

“…Moreover, it is unlikely that stars of greater than $50 M will live for longer than 2Y3 Myr (e.g., Schaller et al 1992). The effect of a supernova blast wave on the dynamics of the stellar rings is negligible (e.g., Wheeler et al 1975), but the removal of the massive stars from the system can have a significant effect, as they are no longer able to excite the velocity dispersion of lower mass stars. We use two crude approximations to account for mass loss and /or stellar death in our simple model.…”