Accretion at the periastron passage of Eta Carinae

Abstract

We present high resolution numerical simulations of the colliding wind system $\eta$ Carinae, showing accretion onto the secondary star close to periastron passage. Our hydrodynamical simulations include self gravity and radiative cooling. The smooth stellar winds collide and develop instabilities, mainly the non-linear thin shell instability, and form filaments and clumps. We find that a few days before periastron passage the dense filaments and clumps flow towards the secondary as a result of its gravitational attraction, and reach the zone where we inject the secondary wind. We run our simulations for the conventional stellar masses, $M_1=120{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$ and $M_2=30{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$, and for a high mass model, $M_1=170{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$ and $M_2=80{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$, that was proposed to better fit the history of giant eruptions. As expected, the simulations results show that the accretion processes is more pronounced for a more massive secondary star.

Accepted for publication in MNRAS. See MNRAS version for color figures

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• Accretion in the Binary System GG Carinae and Implications for B[e] Supergiants
• Accretion in massive colliding wind binaries and the effect of wind momentum ratio