Bridging the gap between luminous red novae and common envelope evolution: the role of recombination energy and radiation force

Abstract

Luminous red novae (LRNe) and their connection to common envelope evolution (CEE) remain elusive in astrophysics. Here, we present a radiation hydrodynamic model capable of simulating the light curves of material ejected during a CEE. For the first time, the radiation hydrodynamic model incorporates complete recombination physics for hydrogen and helium. The radiation hydrodynamic equations are solved with Guangqi. With time-independent ejecta simulations, we show that the peaks in the light curves are attributed to radiation-dominated ejecta, while the extended plateaus are produced by matter-dominated ejecta. To showcase our model's capability, we fit the light curve of AT2019zhd. The central mass object of $6M_{\odot}$ is assumed based on observations and scaling relations. Our model demonstrates that the ejecta mass of AT2019zhd falls within the range of $0.04M_{\odot}$ to $0.1M_{\odot}$. Additionally, we demonstrate that recombination energy and radiation force acceleration significantly impact the light curves, whereas dust formation has a limited effect during the peak and plateau phases.