Bridging the Gap between Luminous Red Novae and Common Envelope Evolution: The Role of Recombination Energy and Radiation Force
Zhuo Chen, Natalia Ivanova
Abstract
Abstract Luminous red novae and their connection to common envelope evolution (CEE) remain elusive in astrophysics. Here, we present a radiation hydrodynamic model capable of simulating the light curves of material ejected during a CEE. For the first time, the radiation hydrodynamic model incorporates complete recombination physics for hydrogen and helium. The radiation hydrodynamic equations are solved with Guangqi . With time-independent ejecta simulations, we show that the peaks in the light curves are attributed to radiation-dominated ejecta, while the extended plateaus are produced by matter-dominated ejecta. To showcase our model’s capability, we fit the light curve of AT 2019zhd. The central mass object of 6 M ⊙ is assumed based on observations and scaling relations. Our model demonstrates that the ejecta mass of AT 2019zhd falls within the range of 0.04–0.1 M ⊙ . Additionally, we demonstrate that recombination energy and radiation force acceleration significantly impact the light curves, whereas dust formation has a limited effect during the peak and plateau phases.