{"paper":{"title":"Weakened Inspirals I: High Mass Ratio Common Envelope Interactions in RGB Stars","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"Higher mass ratios in common envelope interactions with red giants produce wider post-interaction separations up to about 40 solar radii and significantly more stable inspirals once the mass ratio reaches or exceeds 1.","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"astro-ph.SR","authors_text":"Daniel Price, Jack Nibbs, Lionel Siess, Orsola De Marco, Ryosuke Hirai","submitted_at":"2025-12-18T06:17:39Z","abstract_excerpt":"The common envelope (CE) interaction between an expanding giant star and a compact companion typically leads to a rapid orbital decay, ending in either a merger or the formation of a close binary. However, the existence of post-red giant and post-asymptotic giant branch binaries with separations of 100 to 800 Rsun challenges this standard picture, as these systems appear to have experienced strong interactions without undergoing a classic CE inspiral. In this work, we investigate the effect of high mass ratio, q = M2/M1, on the CE inspiral using three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations per"},"claims":{"count":4,"items":[{"kind":"strongest_claim","text":"Higher mass ratios lead to wider post-CE separations, with a maximum of approximately 40 Rsun. For q greater than or equal to 1 the inspiral becomes significantly more stable.","source":"verdict.strongest_claim","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C1","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"weakest_assumption","text":"The pre-CE mass transfer phase is not fully converged with respect to numerical resolution, and higher resolution simulations are expected to further increase its duration and stability.","source":"verdict.weakest_assumption","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C2","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"one_line_summary","text":"High mass ratio common envelope interactions with red giant stars yield wider post-interaction separations up to 40 solar radii and circumbinary disks from fallback, though still smaller than observed wide binaries.","source":"verdict.one_line_summary","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C3","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"headline","text":"Higher mass ratios in common envelope interactions with red giants produce wider post-interaction separations up to about 40 solar radii and significantly more stable inspirals once the mass ratio reaches or exceeds 1.","source":"verdict.pith_extraction.headline","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C4","attestation":"unclaimed"}],"snapshot_sha256":"f832e195516348d584dc5d846e1de375f1cdb823f7a480f532999c10b5187c45"},"source":{"id":"2512.16225","kind":"arxiv","version":3},"verdict":{"id":"0ba9fb21-7fea-4280-b41c-e73af4f6fb4d","model_set":{"reader":"grok-4.3"},"created_at":"2026-05-16T21:55:44.679144Z","strongest_claim":"Higher mass ratios lead to wider post-CE separations, with a maximum of approximately 40 Rsun. For q greater than or equal to 1 the inspiral becomes significantly more stable.","one_line_summary":"High mass ratio common envelope interactions with red giant stars yield wider post-interaction separations up to 40 solar radii and circumbinary disks from fallback, though still smaller than observed wide binaries.","pipeline_version":"pith-pipeline@v0.9.0","weakest_assumption":"The pre-CE mass transfer phase is not fully converged with respect to numerical resolution, and higher resolution simulations are expected to further increase its duration and stability.","pith_extraction_headline":"Higher mass ratios in common envelope interactions with red giants produce wider post-interaction separations up to about 40 solar radii and significantly more stable inspirals once the mass ratio reaches or exceeds 1."},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2512.16225/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":2,"snapshot_sha256":"99484aaaa07841bdb034bee907899561be0952c237801185d068121190ec2831"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}