More luminous red novae that require jets

Abstract

I study two intermediate luminosity optical transients (ILOTs) classified as luminous red novae (LRNe) and argue that their modeling with a common envelope evolution (CEE) without jets encounters challenges. LRNe are ILOTs powered by violent binary interaction. Although popular in the literature is to assume a CEE is the cause of LRNe, I here repeat an old claim that many LRNe are powered by grazing envelope evolution (GEE) events; the GEE might end in a CEE or a detached binary system. I find that the LRN AT 2021biy might have continued to experience mass ejection episodes after its eruption and, therefore, might not suffered a full CEE during the outburst. This adds to an earlier finding that a jet-less model does not account for some of its properties. I find that a suggested jet-less CEE model for the LRN AT 2019zhd does not reproduce its photosphere radius evolution. These results that challenge jet-less models of two LRNe strengthen a previous claim that jets play major roles in powering ILOTs and shaping their ejecta and that in many LRNe, the more compact companion launches the jets during a GEE.