Published April 6, 2026
| Version All simulations were performed with MESA version 24.08.1 and MESA SDK version 25.3.1 on MacOS (ARM)
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MESA Inlists for "Mass Transfer in Tidally Heated Stars Orbiting Massive Black Holes and Implications for Repeating Nuclear Transients"
Description
These are used in a modified version of the “star_plus_point_mass” test suite. Inlist 1 is modified to use new run_star_extras inputs to include tidal heating. Inlist 2 is unmodified from the test suite. Inlist_project is modified for run_binary_extras to include GW in eccentric orbits. The ZAMS star model can be generated from the make_zams test suite.
Modifications:
(1) subroutine energy_dep in run_star_extras:
Take the innermost radius of deposition as input from inlist, and calculate the cells in which tidal heating will be deposited. Distribute the heat calculated from orbital and stellar properties by mass throughout the input region.
(2) subroutines jdot_extra_routine and edot_extra_routine in run_binary_extras:
Calculate the correct extra_jdot and extra_edot following Peters 1964 for eccentric orbits and energy removed by tides (MESA only does circular GW by default)