1998A&A...338..965K

Strong self-excited winds from the companion are very likely in many accreting binaries, and we investigate their evolutionary effects. We show that in white dwarf systems with large mass ratios M₂/M₁>1.3, self-excited winds naturally stabilize mass transfer at a threshold value {dot}(M)_b∼10^–8M_☉/yr. Near this threshold value, irradiation-induced wind loss rates from the companion star become much higher, because of intermittent stable hydrogen shell burning on the accreting white dwarf. The white dwarf can accrete a substantial mass (∼0.5M_☉) during this evolution, and may produce a Type Ia supernova directly in some cases. In other cases the evolution may produce supersoft X-ray binaries with quite massive white dwarfs and moderate-mass companions, which then undergo thermal-timescale mass transfer and may produce SNe Ia themselves. We show that the stability of such `bootstrap' evolution via a self-excited wind is indeterminate if the wind losses depend linearly on the mass transfer rate, as assumed in some analyses of low-mass X-ray binary evolution. Such analyses must be repeated with a more precise form of the wind-driving law. In practice systems with small mass ratios will tend to stabilize in regimes where the wind-driving law is slower than linear, with the opposite result for large mass ratios.