---
OA_place: publisher
OA_type: diamond
_id: '19797'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: Stars stripped of their hydrogen-rich envelopes through binary interaction
    are thought to be responsible for both hydrogen-poor supernovae and the hard ionizing
    radiation observed in low-Z galaxies. A population of these stars was recently
    observed for the first time, but their prevalence remains unknown. In preparation
    for such measurements, we estimate the mass distribution of hot, stripped stars
    using a population synthesis code that interpolates over detailed single and binary
    stellar evolution tracks. We predict that for a constant star formation rate of
    1 M⊙/yr and regardless of metallicity, a scalable model population contains ∼30
    000 stripped stars with mass Mstrip > 1 M⊙ and ∼4000 stripped stars that are sufficiently
    massive to explode (Mstrip > 2.6 M⊙). Below Mstrip = 5 M⊙, the distribution is
    metallicity-independent and can be described by a power law with the exponent
    α ∼ −2. At higher masses and lower metallicity (Z ≲ 0.002), the mass distribution
    exhibits a drop. This originates from the prediction, frequently seen in evolutionary
    models, that massive low-metallicity stars do not expand substantially until central
    helium burning or later and therefore cannot form long-lived stripped stars. With
    weaker line-driven winds at low metallicity, this suggests that neither binary
    interaction nor wind mass loss can efficiently strip massive stars at low metallicity.
    As a result, a “helium-star desert” emerges around Mstrip = 15 M⊙ at Z = 0.002,
    covering an increasingly large mass range with decreasing metallicity. We note
    that these high-mass stars are those that potentially boost a galaxy’s He+-ionizing
    radiation and that participate in the formation of merging black holes. This “helium-star
    desert” therefore merits further study.
acknowledgement: We thank the anonymous referee for providing a constructive report.
  We thank Tomer Shenar and Selma de Mink for the interesting discussions that helped
  us improve the content of Sect. 4. Thank you to Jorick Vink and Andreas Sander for
  helpful discussions about wind driving. BHA thanks the Caltech Summer Undergraduate
  Research Fellowship (SURF) program and Peter Adams for supporting this project in
  memory of Alain Porter and Arthur R. Adams. BHA thanks Gwen Rudie for organizing
  the Carnegie Astrophysics Summer Student Internship (CASSI) program and all the
  staff at Carnegie Observatories who help to support this program. BHA also thanks
  Laura Jaliff, Sal Wanying Fu, Ivanna Escala, Johanna Teske, Tony Piro, Brian Lorenz,
  and Peter Senchyna for their mentorship during this project. Computing resources
  used for this work were made possible by a grant from the Ahmanson Foundation. We
  thank the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science for support, including
  Chris Burns for help with computations. This work used computing resources provided
  by Northwestern University and the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and
  Research in Astrophysics (CIERA). This research was supported in part through the
  computational resources and staff contributions provided for the Quest high performance
  computing facility at Northwestern University which is jointly supported by the
  Office of the Provost, the Office for Research, and Northwestern University Information
  Technology. MRD acknowledges support from the NSERC through grant RGPIN-2019-06186,
  the Canada Research Chairs Program, and the Dunlap Institute at the University of
  Toronto. BHA is supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship
  under Grant No. DGE-2234667.
article_number: A239
article_processing_charge: No
article_type: original
arxiv: 1
author:
- first_name: B.
  full_name: Hovis-Afflerbach, B.
  last_name: Hovis-Afflerbach
- first_name: Ylva Louise Linsdotter
  full_name: Götberg, Ylva Louise Linsdotter
  id: d0648d0c-0f64-11ee-a2e0-dd0faa2e4f7d
  last_name: Götberg
  orcid: 0000-0002-6960-6911
- first_name: A.
  full_name: Schootemeijer, A.
  last_name: Schootemeijer
- first_name: J.
  full_name: Klencki, J.
  last_name: Klencki
- first_name: A. L.
  full_name: Strom, A. L.
  last_name: Strom
- first_name: B. A.
  full_name: Ludwig, B. A.
  last_name: Ludwig
- first_name: M. R.
  full_name: Drout, M. R.
  last_name: Drout
citation:
  ama: 'Hovis-Afflerbach B, Götberg YLL, Schootemeijer A, et al. The mass distribution
    of stars stripped in binaries: The effect of metallicity. <i>Astronomy &#38; Astrophysics</i>.
    2025;697. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202453185">10.1051/0004-6361/202453185</a>'
  apa: 'Hovis-Afflerbach, B., Götberg, Y. L. L., Schootemeijer, A., Klencki, J., Strom,
    A. L., Ludwig, B. A., &#38; Drout, M. R. (2025). The mass distribution of stars
    stripped in binaries: The effect of metallicity. <i>Astronomy &#38; Astrophysics</i>.
    EDP Sciences. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202453185">https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202453185</a>'
  chicago: 'Hovis-Afflerbach, B., Ylva Louise Linsdotter Götberg, A. Schootemeijer,
    J. Klencki, A. L. Strom, B. A. Ludwig, and M. R. Drout. “The Mass Distribution
    of Stars Stripped in Binaries: The Effect of Metallicity.” <i>Astronomy &#38;
    Astrophysics</i>. EDP Sciences, 2025. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202453185">https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202453185</a>.'
  ieee: 'B. Hovis-Afflerbach <i>et al.</i>, “The mass distribution of stars stripped
    in binaries: The effect of metallicity,” <i>Astronomy &#38; Astrophysics</i>,
    vol. 697. EDP Sciences, 2025.'
  ista: 'Hovis-Afflerbach B, Götberg YLL, Schootemeijer A, Klencki J, Strom AL, Ludwig
    BA, Drout MR. 2025. The mass distribution of stars stripped in binaries: The effect
    of metallicity. Astronomy &#38; Astrophysics. 697, A239.'
  mla: 'Hovis-Afflerbach, B., et al. “The Mass Distribution of Stars Stripped in Binaries:
    The Effect of Metallicity.” <i>Astronomy &#38; Astrophysics</i>, vol. 697, A239,
    EDP Sciences, 2025, doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202453185">10.1051/0004-6361/202453185</a>.'
  short: B. Hovis-Afflerbach, Y.L.L. Götberg, A. Schootemeijer, J. Klencki, A.L. Strom,
    B.A. Ludwig, M.R. Drout, Astronomy &#38; Astrophysics 697 (2025).
corr_author: '1'
das_tickbox: '0'
date_created: 2025-06-08T22:01:22Z
date_published: 2025-05-01T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2026-09-16T09:06:06Z
day: '01'
ddc:
- '520'
department:
- _id: YlGo
doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202453185
external_id:
  arxiv:
  - '2412.05356'
  isi:
  - '001494033100007'
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fulldoi: https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202453185
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language:
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license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
month: '05'
oa: 1
oa_version: Published Version
publication: Astronomy & Astrophysics
publication_identifier:
  eissn:
  - 1432-0746
  issn:
  - 0004-6361
publication_status: published
publisher: EDP Sciences
quality_controlled: '1'
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status: public
supplementarymaterial: no
title: 'The mass distribution of stars stripped in binaries: The effect of metallicity'
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...