In tight binary systems, a star on an elongated orbit sheds mass—and this shedding either brakes the catastrophe or triggers a chain reaction of disruption. The key is the duel between two radii: the tidal radius and the Roche lobe. If the pericenter is below 3.45 tidal radii, adiabatic expansion in
arXiv:2606.04966v1 · 2026-06-03