Eccentric grazing envelope evolution towards Type IIb supernova progenitors

We simulate the evolution of eccentric binary systems in the frame of the grazing envelope evolution (GEE) channel for the formation of Type IIb supernovae (SNe IIb), and find that extra mass removal by jets increases the parameter space for the formation of SNe IIb in this channel. To explore the role of eccentricity and the extra mass removal by jets, we use the stellar evolutionary code MESA BINARY. The initial primary and secondary masses are M_{1, i} = 15 and M_{2, i} = 2.5 M_⊙. We examine initial semimajor axes of 600-1000 R_⊙, and eccentricities of e = 0-0.9. Both Roche lobe overflow (RLOF) and mass removal by jets, followed by a wind, leave a hydrogen mass in the exploding star of M_{H, f} ≈ 0.05 M_⊙, compatible with an SN IIb progenitor. When the initial orbit is not circular, the final orbit might have a very high eccentricity. In many cases, with and without the extra mass removal by jets, the system can enter a common envelope evolution (CEE) phase, and then gets out from it. For some ranges of eccentricities, the jets are more efficient in preventing the CEE. Despite the large uncertainties, extra mass removal by jets substantially increases the likelihood of the system to get out from a CEE. This strengthens earlier conclusions for circular orbits. In some cases, RLOF alone, without mass removal by jets, can form SN IIb progenitors. We estimate that the extra mass removal by jets in the GEE channel increases the number of progenitors relative to that by RLOF alone by about a factor of 2.