# Black hole formation via hypercritical accretion during common envelope evolution

## 1. INTRODUCTION

Common envelope evolution, in which the components of a binary system are engulfed by a common gaseous envelope, is a brief but crucial phase in the formation of many compact binary systems. Drag forces, due to velocity differences between the orbiting components of the binary and the surrounding gas, work to shrink the binary orbit, while the potential energy released acts to expel the common envelope. Extensive numerical work (e.g. Bodenheimer & Taam 1984; Livio & Soker 1988; Taam, Bodenheimer & Rozyczka 1994; Sandquist et al. 1998) has only partially succeeded in reducing the large uncertainties surrounding the efficiency of this process (Iben & Livio 1993; Livio 1994; Rasio & Livio 1996).

For neutron stars, an equally fundamental uncertainty concerns the accretion rate during the common envelope phase. At the densities of a typical giant envelope, the Bondi-Hoyle accretion rate $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ for an inspiralling neutron star would be extremely large, typically of the order of $`1M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$, and often much larger still. This is many orders of magnitude in excess of the Eddington rate<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1the Eddington ‘limit’ here implies only an order-of-magnitude estimate of the accretion rate, since accretion in common envelopes is not generally spherically symmetric of $`10^8M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ — obtained by equating the outward radiation pressure with gravity — leading to starkly different predicted outcomes. If $`\dot{M}`$ is limited to the Eddington rate (or is even several orders of magnitude higher), then ejection of the stellar envelope will occur when the total accreted mass is $`M_{\mathrm{acc}}M_{}`$, and the neutron star will survive. Conversely, uninhibited accretion at close to $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ will lead almost inevitably to collapse to a black hole.

Recent work has tended to suggest that $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ is the appropriate rate for neutron star accretion in a stellar envelope (see e.g. Bethe & Brown 1998 and references therein). At sufficiently high accretion rates, the Eddington limit becomes irrelevant because photons are trapped and advected inward with the flow (Rees 1978; Begelman 1979; Blondin 1986). A hot envelope develops around the neutron star, and eventually high enough densities and temperatures are reached that the accretion energy can be radiated away by neutrinos. This hypercritical mode of accretion has been considered in the context of fallback onto neutron stars in supernovae (e.g. Colgate 1971; Zeldovich, Ivanova & Nadezhin 1971; Chevalier 1989; Houck & Chevalier 1991), as a component of models for gamma-ray bursts (Popham, Woosley & Fryer 1999), and applied to the problem of accretion in a stellar envelope (Chevalier 1993, 1996; Brown 1995; Fryer, Benz & Herant 1996). A striking consequence of ubiquitous hypercritical accretion would be that neutron star-neutron star binaries cannot form from massive binaries via the usual common envelope evolution route, which would instead lead to black hole-neutron star binaries. The observed population of neutron star-neutron star binaries would have to form instead via a rarer channel in which the binary progenitors are of nearly equal mass (Brown 1995), and would be an order of magnitude rarer than black hole-neutron star binaries (Bethe & Brown 1998). The robustness of this conclusion is of great interest, since these binaries are both potential gamma-ray burst progenitors, and the most promising targets for the early LIGO detection of gravitational waves (Abramovici et al. 1992).

The velocity of the neutron star relative to the common envelope ensures that the accretion flow cannot be spherically symmetric, at least at large radii of the order of the accretion radius. Moreover, gradients in the envelope structure across the accretion radius introduce angular momentum into the flow, which modifies its properties even at small radii, via the formation of a rotationally supported disk. In this paper we investigate how these complexities affect hypercritical accretion via hydrodynamic simulations of the outer parts of the accretion flow. Our approach thus complements the consideration of angular momentum presented by Chevalier (1996), though as discussed later we draw different conclusions as to its likely importance.

The plan of this paper is as follows. In §2 we briefly review the properties of spherical hypercritical accretion that are relevant for the common envelope application, and in §3 we outline the numerical methods used. The principal computational limitation is the restriction to two dimensional simulations. Results for flows with zero and non-zero angular momentum are presented in §4 and §5, and the implications and remaining uncertainties discussed in §6.

## 2. HYPERCRITICAL ACCRETION

The simplest approximation to the accretion flow in a common envelope is to describe it as Bondi-Hoyle-Lyttleton accretion from a uniform medium onto a point mass. The properties of such flows have been extensively studied, both analytically (Hoyle & Lyttleton 1939; Bondi & Hoyle 1944), and numerically (e.g. Ruffert 1997; Kley, Shankar & Burkert 1995; Benensohn, Lamb & Taam 1997, and references therein). For an accretor of mass $`M`$, the critical radius is the accretion radius<sup>2</sup><sup>2</sup>2There are a variety of definitions of $`R_a`$ in the literature, but all lead to accretion rates that are essentially the same for our purposes,

$$R_a=\frac{2GM}{v_{\mathrm{}}^2+c_{\mathrm{}}^2},$$
(1)   
where $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`c_{\mathrm{}}`$ are the velocity and sound speed far upstream of the accreting star. Material falling into a cylinder with this radius is accreted, so that,

$$\dot{M}_{\mathrm{BH}}=\pi R_a^2\rho _{\mathrm{}}\sqrt{v_{\mathrm{}}^2+c_{\mathrm{}}^2},$$
(2)   
where $`\rho _{\mathrm{}}`$ is the density of the gas far upstream of the accretor, and the last factor is included as it provides better results for low Mach number accretors. The timescale for setting up the flow is of the order of the sound crossing time at the accretion radius, $`t_a=R_a/c_{\mathrm{}}`$. Generally, since we are interested in inspiral through a pressure supported atmosphere, we expect Mach numbers of order unity, though this will vary somewhat at different radii in the star.

Numerical values for $`R_a`$ and $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ require specification of a stellar model. Fryer, Benz & Herant (1996) tabulate values for several giant and main sequence stars (the giants are of greater interest here, though somewhat analagous considerations apply to neutron star-main sequence collisions, for example in globular clusters). For example, for a $`20M_{}`$ giant $`R_a10^{11}\mathrm{cm}`$, while $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ varies from $`10^2M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ on upwards. For a more distended $`10M_{}`$ model lower accretion rates of $`10^2M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ are of course expected in the outer regions. These accretion rates can only be realized in the hypercritical regime, since the Eddington limit on the luminosity,

$$L_{\mathrm{Edd}}=\frac{4\pi GMm_pc}{\sigma _T},$$
(3)   
where $`m_p`$ is the proton mass and $`\sigma _T`$ the Thomson cross-section, corresponds to a few $`\times 10^8M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$.

For hypercritical accretion to occur the timescale for photons to diffuse out of the flow must exceed the timescale for them to be advected inwards. For a spherical flow whose opacity $`\kappa _{\mathrm{es}}`$ is dominated by electron scattering, the optical depth is

$$\tau _{\mathrm{es}}=\rho (R)\kappa _{\mathrm{es}}𝑑R,$$
(4)   
and the diffusion time is roughly,

$$t_{\mathrm{diff}}\frac{R}{c}\tau _{\mathrm{es}}.$$
(5)   
For a flow in free-fall, where $`v_r=\sqrt{2GM/R}`$, equating $`t_{\mathrm{diff}}`$ to the free-fall time $`R/v_r`$ yields an estimate for the trapping radius (Blondin 1986),

$$R_{\mathrm{trap}}=\frac{1}{2}\frac{\dot{M}c^2}{L_{\mathrm{Edd}}}\frac{2GM}{c^2}.$$
(6)   
In addition to the photons being trapped, we must also be able to eventually lose the accretion energy from the system. For a black hole, this is possible at any accretion rate since the energy can be invisibly advected across the horizon (e.g. Narayan, Garcia & McClintock 1997). In a neutron star system, high accretion rates are required because the pressure at the base of the accretion flow must be able to become large enough to allow neutrino losses (primarily from electron positron annihilation into neutrino pairs) to balance the accretion energy, $`GM\dot{M}/R_{\mathrm{ns}}`$. In the spherically symmetric case, this requirement usually requires the formation of a hot envelope at small radii, in which $`v_r`$ is subsonic, bounded from free falling gas by a shock at radius $`R_{\mathrm{sh}}`$. Within this inner region, the density and pressure scale as a radiation dominated $`\gamma =4/3`$ ($`n=3`$) polytrope (e.g. Brown 1995; Fryer, Benz & Herant 1996),

$$\rho =\rho _0\left(\frac{R}{R_{\mathrm{sh}}}\right)^3,p=p_0\left(\frac{R}{R_{\mathrm{sh}}}\right)^4.$$
(7)   
A detailed calculation (Houck & Chevalier 1991; Brown 1995) finds for $`R_{\mathrm{sh}}`$,

$$R_{\mathrm{sh}}2.6\times 10^8\mathrm{cm}\left(\frac{\dot{M}}{M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1}\right)^{0.37}.$$
(8)   
Requiring that $`R_{\mathrm{sh}}<R_{\mathrm{trap}}`$ gives a limit on the accretion rate, of roughly $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{hyper}}10^4M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$. Even allowing for a generous margin of error in this crude estimate, for example due to a non-spherical geometry, this is substantially less than the Bondi-Hoyle rate in an envelope, which should thus be safely in the hypercritical regime. Of course we also require in the common envelope case that $`R_{\mathrm{sh}}<R_a`$, but for spherical accretion and $`R_a10^{11}\mathrm{cm}`$ this is an easily satisfied constraint, $`\dot{M}10^7M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$.

If angular momentum and other possible complications can be neglected, the scenario for the inspiral of a neutron star then has three stages. First, the neutron star accretes at less than the Eddington rate as it encounters the tenuous outer atmosphere of the companion. Negligible mass is accumulated in this phase. As the density grows, the implied Bondi-Hoyle rate first rises above $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{Edd}}`$, but is below $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{hyper}}`$. In this regime outward diffusion of photons is effective at limiting accretion, again to negligible levels. Finally, the Bondi-Hoyle rate rises well above the critical value for hypercritical accretion, and gas starts accreting freely onto the neutron star. The outcome then depends critically on how much mass can be accumulated before enough energy has been lost to unbind the envelope. Brown (1995) estimates this energy as,

$$E3<v_{\mathrm{}}^2>\mathrm{\Delta }M$$
(9)   
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }M`$ is the accreted mass, and $`<v_{\mathrm{}}^2>`$ is the average mean velocity squared during the hypercritical accretion phase. For typical binding energies and velocities, $`\mathrm{\Delta }M1M_{}`$, sometimes vastly so, and the mass accreted will probably exceed the maximum mass for a neutron star and force collapse to a black hole.

## 3. NUMERICAL METHOD

We investigate how angular momentum could affect the above scenario of hypercritical accretion by studying the inviscid, purely hydrodynamic behavior of infalling gas at large radii, $`RR_{ns}`$. The hypercritical regime corresponds to the complete dominance of advection of photons over diffusion, so that the effects of radiation transport are negligible. We also neglect magnetic fields, which is potentially less forgivable. To attain the required dynamic range in three dimensional calculations including magnetic fields unfortunately remain difficult.

### 3.1. 2D simulations

We have investigated two dimensional simulations both in spherical polar geometry (with $`v`$ parallel to $`\theta =0`$ and axisymmetry in the $`\varphi `$ direction), and in cylindrical geometry $`(z,R,\varphi )`$. The spherical polar simulations represent the most faithful two dimensional representation of the flow, but necessarily exclude the possibility of studying angular momentum or density gradients in the ambient medium. For such zero angular momentum flows, we found only that the analytic Bondi-Hoyle estimate of equation (2) provides a good estimate of the accretion rate (for low Mach numbers the actual accretion rate is somewhat higher than the estimate, but the difference is not so great as to qualitatively affect the result).

For these reasons (and following Benensohn, Lamb & Taam 1997 and most other two dimensional calculations) we focus on the cylindrical polar calculations. The neutron star is represented as a point mass at $`R=0`$, surrounded by a fixed computational mesh in $`(R,\varphi )`$. We use uniform zoning in the $`\varphi `$ direction, and choose the radial grid such that $`R_{i+1}=\beta R_i`$ with $`\beta >1`$ a constant. This amounts to choosing cells that have the same shape, in our case roughly square, at all radii.

Cylindrical polar simulations in which $`z`$ is the ignored co-ordinate allow for angular momentum, but correspond to the rather unphysical assumption that the central mass moves through a thin sheet of gas with zero gradients in the perpendicular direction. This may lead to qualitative errors, for example in the strength and prominence of ‘flip-flop’ instabilities at high Mach numbers (compare e.g. Livio 1992; Benensohn, Lamb & Taam (1997); Ruffert (1997)), though untangling the effects of geometry and resolution in the various calculations is difficult. We will not be interested here in transient disks or instabilities in the wake, where these issues are most worrisome.

We assume that the gas is dominated by radiation pressure out to the outer boundary of the simulation at a few $`R_a`$. The equation of state can then be modelled using a simple adiabatic relation,

$$p=(\gamma 1)ϵ,$$
(10)   
where $`ϵ`$ is the energy per unit volume and we take $`\gamma =4/3`$, corresponding to a radiation dominated gas where $`p=1/3ϵ`$.

The calculations use the ZEUS-3D code developed by the Laboratory for Computational Astrophysics (Clarke, Norman & Fiedler 1994). ZEUS is an Eulerian finite difference code which employs an artificial viscosity to handle shocks. The algorithms and design of the code are closely similar to those detailed by Stone & Norman (1992a, 1992b).

### 3.2. Boundary conditions

For the outer boundary condition, we impose inflow of gas at velocity $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$ and sound speed $`c_{\mathrm{}}`$ at the outer boundary, $`R_{\mathrm{out}}`$, for $`\pi /2<\varphi <\pi /2`$. Over the remainder of the outer boundary outflow boundary conditions are specified, implemented as simple continuation of fluid variables on the grid into the boundary zones. We take a Mach number $`=1.5`$, appropriate to the generally mildly supersonic accretion flows in common envelopes.

An inspiralling neutron star encounters radial gradients in $`\rho _{\mathrm{}}`$, $`c_{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$ across the accretion radius. In most cases the density gradient is the principal effect (e.g. Fryer, Benz & Herant 1996), which we model as a simple exponential,

$$\rho _{\mathrm{}}e^{ϵ_\rho \mathrm{\Delta }r/R_a}$$
(11)   
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ is the radial distance in the common envelope of the unperturbed medium from the neutron star orbit, and $`ϵ_\rho `$ measures the strength of the gradient across the accretion radius. Values of $`ϵ_\rho `$ for various stars vary substantially, and have been tabulated by Fryer, Benz & Herant (1996).

The inner boundary condition is reflecting ($`v_R=0`$ at $`R=R_{\mathrm{in}}`$), allowing for the formation of a pressure supported inner envelope for zero angular momentum accretion. This implicitly assumes low accretion rates where the shock radius $`R_{\mathrm{sh}}`$ is large enough to exceed $`R_{\mathrm{in}}`$. For runs with angular momentum, the choice of inner boundary condition is less important as angular momentum provides substantial support against gravity at small radii. Our boundary condition then amounts to assuming that radial flow through the disk is slow – the plausibility of this can be verified post facto by studying the properties of the disks formed in the calculation.

## 4. DISK FORMATION

Figure 1 shows results for a series of Bondi-Hoyle accretion simulations in which the density gradient in the ambient medium was varied from $`ϵ_\rho =0`$ to $`ϵ_\rho =0.4`$. All the calculations used a grid with $`n_\varphi =144`$ and $`n_R=160`$. The inner boundary was at $`R_{\mathrm{in}}=R_a/60`$ and the outer boundary at $`R_{\mathrm{out}}=4R_a`$, giving a grid with $`\beta 1.03`$. The calculations were run until $`t=32t_a`$, where the time unit $`t_a`$ is the sound crossing time of the accretion radius $`R_a`$. We plot in Fig. 1 only the inner region of the accretion flow. The $`ϵ_\rho =0.2`$ run was also recomputed at modestly higher resolution ($`n_r=n_\varphi =200`$) until $`t=100t_a`$, in order to ascertain how quickly mass accumulated in the outer parts of the disk at a later time. No qualitative changes were observed to occur during this longer simulation.

In the absence of density gradients in the ambient gas, the structure of the flow resembles closely that seen in simulations of Bondi-Hoyle accretion with the same parameters and an absorbing inner boundary condition. A pressure supported, roughly symmetric envelope has developed around the central object, and this displaces the bow shock upstream into the flow. At this resolution and Mach number, the flow is found to be only rather weakly transient. Increasing the density gradient first leads to an asymmetric displacement of the bow shock, followed for more extreme density gradients by the formation of a clear disk in the inner regions of the simulation. For the parameters adopted here, $`ϵ_\rho 0.2`$ suffices to create a clear and persistent disk surrounding the central object.

Figure 2 plots the velocity and density fields corresponding to the images in Fig. 1. Over this radial range there is a large variation in velocity, which we normalise to the local Keplerian value $`v_k=\sqrt{(GM/R)}`$. For the zero density gradient case, the outer flow is clearly not cylindrically symmetric, but within $`0.1R_a`$ of the central object the envelope is both reasonably symmetric and characterised by only small rotational motions. Conversely, a clear disk is produced in the calculations with stronger density gradients, $`ϵ_\rho 0.2`$, the flow here is disk-like out to at least $`R_a/2`$.

Figure 3 shows how the volume averaged rotational velocity from the simulations, normalised to $`v_k`$, varies as a function of radius. Negligible rotation is seen in the $`ϵ_\rho =0`$ run, with $`<v_\varphi >/v_k0.1`$ at all radii, while the runs with density gradients all show the signature of a disk in which both pressure gradients and rotational support are significant. For the two runs with the largest gradients, a sizeable disk extending out to almost $`R_a`$, with typical angular velocity $`\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }_k/2`$, is clearly produced.

## 5. DISK EVOLUTION

For hypercritical accretion, the disks formed around the neutron star will be advection dominated. The properties of advection dominated flows have been extensively studied, both at the high accretion rates of interest here (e.g. Begelman & Meier 1982) and more recently at lower accretion rates (e.g. Narayan & Yi 1994, 1995). These disks are hot, geometrically thick, and only weakly bound to the accreting object. The presence of a disk may affect the outcome of common envelope evolution in two ways, via a modification of the accretion rate onto the neuton star or via feedback of energy into the stellar envelope.

The most direct potential influence of a disk is via the accretion rate. As infall continues, the disk will reach a quasi-steady state in which the rate of infall onto the outer disk balances the rate of disk accretion. This rate need not be the Bondi-Hoyle rate, and in principle could be lower (for an illustration, in our inviscid simulations, where the viscosity is very low, we eventually reach a steady state where there is close to zero ongoing accumulation of mass in the disk). We estimate whether this is important below, and show that for the usually considered values of $`\alpha _{\mathrm{SS}}`$, the Shakura-Sunyaev (1973) viscosity parameter, the disk is probably able to transport mass inwards at the Bondi-Hoyle rate.

The presence of a disk also makes the formation of outflows or jets probable (e.g. Livio 1999). Strong outflows could themselves affect the fate of the system by reducing the accretion rate onto the neutron star. Much weaker jets, if they arose from deep in the neutron star potential well, would still provide an important additional energy input into the envelope, and shorten the common envelope phase.

### 5.1. Accretion rate

The accretion rate through the disk can be estimated from the measured disk mass and the inferred viscous timescale. For a viscosity parameterized via the Shakura-Sunyeav (1973) form, $`\nu =\alpha _{\mathrm{SS}}c_s^2/\mathrm{\Omega }_k`$, and at radius $`R`$ the viscous timescale is,

$$t_\nu =\frac{R^2}{\nu }=\frac{R^2\mathrm{\Omega }_k}{\alpha _{\mathrm{SS}}c_s^2}.$$
(12)   
The mass in the disk will drain onto the central object on the viscous timescale at the outer radius, with an accretion rate $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{disk}}M_{\mathrm{disk}}/t_\nu `$. The value of $`\alpha _{\mathrm{SS}}`$ appropriate to thick, radiation dominated disks is unknown. If MHD instabilites (Balbus & Hawley 1991) are responsible for the viscosity, then simulations of thin gas pressure dominated disks find typically that $`\alpha _{\mathrm{SS}}10^2`$ (Stone et al. 1996; Brandenburg et al. 1996). There remain large uncertainties in the theoretical expectation for disks of the kind that we are interested in. However, taking $`\alpha _{\mathrm{SS}}=10^2`$, and evaluating the accretion rate from the disk mass and run of sound speed obtained at $`t=100t_a`$ in the long duration $`ϵ_\rho =0.2`$ run, we find that $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{disk}}\dot{M}_{\mathrm{BH}}`$. This is a crude estimate, which in particular ignores completely the expansion of the disk expected from viscous evolution (Lynden-Bell & Pringle 1974). As a result, the value $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ should be regarded as an upper limit to the mean accretion rate through the disk. Furthermore, at least at small radii the accretion is unlikely even to be steady (Chevalier 1996), since the much slower fall-off of pressure with radius in an advection dominated disk as compared to a spherical envelope ($`pR^{5/2}`$ as compared to $`pR^4`$) requires non-steady accretion to reach the extreme conditions required for neutrino emission. However, it suggests that there is no strong reason to believe that, in the absence of outflows, the formation of a disk creates an insurmountable bottleneck to rapid accretion.

### 5.2. Outflows and jets

Most accretion disk systems are observed to generate jets or less well collimated outflows. Although a thick disk such as that formed in the simulations has a relatively small density contrast between the equatorial plane and the polar regions, advection dominated flows are also hot enough that the gas is only weakly bound to the central mass. Detailed solutions show that the Bernoulli constant,

$$\mathrm{Be}\frac{1}{2}v_R^2+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Omega }^2R^2\mathrm{\Omega }_k^2R^2+\frac{\gamma }{\gamma 1}c_s^2,$$
(13)   
which measures the energy the gas would possess if adiabatically moved to infinity, is positive for an often wide range of angles close to the poles (Narayan & Yi 1994; 1995). Although the outcome depends additionally on the outer boundary conditions and the detailed physics of outflow generation, this positivity of $`\mathrm{Be}`$ is likely to imply that outflows are a generic feature of advection dominated disks ( Narayan & Yi 1995; Blandford & Begelman 1999). For our purposes, we can distinguish two extreme possibilities, in which outflows are either self-similar or generated exclusively from the inner disk at $`RR_{\mathrm{ns}}`$.

#### 5.2.1 Outflows

Self-similar outflows from advection dominated flows represent the model considered by Blandford & Begelman (1999). In this case the fraction of accreting mass lost in the outflow is the same for each decade in disk radius, so that the remaining mass accretion rate through the disk decreases inwards as $`\dot{M}R^n`$ with $`0<n<1`$. The appropriate value of $`n`$, which within this model measures the efficiency with which mass is ejected, has not been determined for any realistic thick disk model, though it is has been suggested that $`n`$ is large for simulations of convection in thick disks (Stone, Pringle & Begelman 1999). Empirically $`n`$ must be $`n1`$ if this model is to be successful in explaining the extremely low radiative efficiencies of disks around black holes in low luminosity galactic nuclei (e.g. Reynolds et al. 1996). In the common envelope case, the disk extends over an extremely large range of radii, from the neutron star surface at $`R10^6\mathrm{cm}`$ out to of the order of the accretion radius at $`R10^{11}\mathrm{cm}`$. As a result, the consequence of outflows that are inefficient at removing angular momentum would be to greatly reduce the accretion rate onto the neutron star. Cygnus X-2 may be an example of a neutron star that has survived an episode of super-Eddington mass transfer (though here during thermal timescale mass transfer rather than common envelope evolution) without accreting a significant fraction of the transferred mass (King & Ritter 1999; King & Begelman 1999). If this is indeed the case, it provides some support for the scenario of strong outflows under physical conditions analagous to those encountered during common envelope inspiral.

#### 5.2.2 Jets

Alternatively, outflows may arise predominantly from the inner disk. In this case, the energy feedback into the common envelope from outflows originating deep in the neutron star potential well could be highly significant. If, as observations of jet systems suggest (Livio 1999), the jet is launched with a velocity roughly equal to the local Keplerian velocity, $`v_{\mathrm{jet}}^2GM_{\mathrm{ns}}/R_{\mathrm{ns}}`$, then the energy deposition after $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_{\mathrm{jet}}`$ of mass has been ejected is just,

$$E_{\mathrm{jet}}\alpha _{\mathrm{jet}}\frac{GM_{\mathrm{ns}}\mathrm{\Delta }M_{\mathrm{jet}}}{R_{\mathrm{ns}}},$$
(14)   
where $`\alpha _{\mathrm{jet}}`$ is an efficiency factor that will depend on the specific jet model. Ejecting the common envelope requires an energy deposition of around $`2\times 10^{48}\mathrm{ergs}`$ (Brown 1995), which could be achieved for a mass loss in a jet as low as,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }M_{\mathrm{jet}}5\times 10^6\alpha _{\mathrm{jet}}^1M_{}.$$
(15)   
The energetic feedback from such an outflow could thus be important for hastening the ejection of the envelope, even if the mass loss itself was far too small to significantly impact the accretion rate. Indeed for this type of jet a large energy deposition could only be avoided if either the accretion rate was $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{BH}}`$, or if the efficiency of the jet production or coupling to the envelope was extremely low. A low efficiency of coupling to the envelope could arise if the jet was extremely well collimated and able to escape the star entirely, which remains a possibility. However, even for a collimation angle of $`10^2`$, which is typical for many jet sources, the ejection of $`0.2M_{}`$ is sufficient to unbind the envelope. If jets are able to deposit energy into the envelope then an immediate consequence would be that the outcome of common envelope evolution should depend on the depth of the potential well at the surface of the inspiralling compact object – more compact objects should lead to a higher value of the common envelope efficiency parameter $`\alpha _{\mathrm{CE}}`$ and eject the envelope more easily.

## 6. DISCUSSION

In this paper we have considered the probable fate of neutron stars during common envelope evolution. Numerical simulations of the hydrodynamics of Bondi-Hoyle accretion at large radii from the neutron star show that modest density gradients, typical of those expected in giant envelopes, lead to persistent rotationally supported disks around the accreting object. The presence of angular momentum means that spherically symmetric treatments of hypercritical accretion are likely to be a poor approximation for studying the the common envelope phase. In particular, whether the neutron star accretes enough mass to force it to collapse to a black hole prior to loss of the envelope depends entirely on the subsequent evolution of a thick, advection dominated, accretion disk. Little is known about the behavior of such disks, opening plenty of room for legitimate dispute as to the outcome.

Simple estimates suggest that the disks formed in the simulations are sufficiently hot and thick to support accretion rates which could be as large as the inferred Bondi-Hoyle rate in the common envelope phase, provided only that the disk viscosity is not surprisingly small. The presence of a disk does not create a serious bottleneck in the accretion flow at $`RR_a`$. However, more complex and uncertain physics is likely to come into play close to the neutron star. Jets are observed almost universally from accreting systems possessing thick, hot accretion disks, of the kind envisaged here. In the case of SS433, which arguably is the closest prototype to the physical condition of a neutron star in a common envelope, the mass outflow in the jets is extremely strong (e.g. Watson et al. 1986). During common envelope evolution, a jet would allow for a strong feedback of energy from close to the neutron star surface into the stellar envelope, leading to a more rapid ejection of the envelope than would be possible from gas and gravitational drag alone. Since the fate of the neutron star depends on a sensitive balance between the rate at which it accretes and the rate at which energy is deposited into the common envelope (Brown 1995), this would improve the chances of neutron star survival both by lowering the accretion rate and by reducing the epoch of common envelope evolution. In general, jets must be avoided at all costs if the neutron star is to be able to accrete a large mass during inspiral. It is also possible that enough of the radiated neutrino energy could be absorbed at a larger radius to drive explosions, as discussed in the context of spherical accretion models by Fryer, Benz & Herant (1996).

Observationally, several binary pulsars are known whose properties would be consistent with the neutron star having survived a phase of common envelope evolution. Camilo et al. (1996) identify four pulsars which have relatively large companion masses (in excess of 0.45 $`M_{}`$), and which do not follow the eccentricity–orbital period relation expected for lower mass binary pulsars (Phinney 1992). These systems are likely to have undergone deep common envelope evolution (van den Heuvel 1994), although probably the companions were of rather lower mass (1–6 $`M_{}`$) than we have been discussing here. Nonetheless, what is striking is that these neutron stars appear to have not only survived, but are now observed to be rotating with spin periods that are rapid, yet significantly slower than pulsars believed to have been spun-up via disk accretion. This is consistent with the scenario argued here, in which common envelope evolution involves accretion rates that are vastly super-Eddington yet still insufficient to force collapse of the neutron star to a black hole. It is also consistent with the suggestion of Brown, Lee & Bethe (1999), who point out that the inferred masses of black holes in transient sources (which appear to be a large fraction of the mass of the immediate progenitor) imply that hypercritical accretion onto black holes in supernovae must be reasonably efficient. In supernovae, mass must be physically ejected from the system to avoid being accreted eventually, whereas in the common envelope case a modestly lowered accretion rate can suffice to enable the neutron star to survive until the envelope is lost.

PJA thanks Brad Hansen for many useful discussions, and Space Telescope Science Institute for their usual hospitality. ML acknowledges support from NASA Grant NAG5-6857.