2002NewA....7..147I

Recent works have shown that the red giants in some symbiotic binary systems do not fill their Roche lobes. However, the mass accretion rates expected from capture of the stellar winds of the red giants by the hot components are usually much lower than those required to maintain the symbiotic activity of the systems. In this work a new approach for the mass transfer in detached binary systems including mass loosing red giants is attempted. Our formula gives mass transfer rates of 10-7∼10-8 M☉yr-1 when the red giants fill a half of their Roche lobes in radius. This type of mass transfer seems to be able to supply sufficient fuel to nuclear burning on the hot components of some symbiotic systems.