Testing models for fully and partially stripped low-mass stars with Gaia: Implications for hot subdwarfs, binary RR Lyrae, and black hole impostors

Pranav Nagarajan, Kareem El-Badry, Alexey Bobrick +4

When low-mass ($\lesssim 2$ $M_{\odot }$) red giants lose their envelopes to a companion just before the helium flash, the resulting mass transfer can produce binaries hosting hot s…