The Mass-Loss Induced Eccentric Kozai Mechanism: A New Channel for the
  Production of Close Compact Object-Stellar Binaries
  Over a broad range of initial inclinations and eccentricities an appreciable
fraction of hierarchical triple star systems with similar masses are
essentially unaffected by the Kozai-Lidov mechanism (KM) until the primary in
the central binary evolves into a compact object. Once it does, it may be much
less massive than the other components in the ternary, enabling the "eccentric
Kozai mechanism (EKM):" the mutual inclination between the inner and outer
binary can flip signs driving the inner binary to very high eccentricity,
leading to a close binary or collision. We demonstrate this "Mass-loss Induced
Eccentric Kozai" (MIEK) mechanism by considering an example system and defining
an ad-hoc minimal separation between the inner two members at which tidal
affects become important. For fixed initial masses and semi-major axes, but
uniform distributions of eccentricity and cosine of the mutual inclination,
~10% of systems interact tidally or collide while the primary is on the MS due
to the KM or EKM. Those affected by the EKM are not captured by earlier
quadrupole-order secular calculations. We show that fully ~30% of systems
interact tidally or collide for the first time as the primary swells to AU
scales, mostly as a result of the KM. Finally, ~2% of systems interact tidally
or collide for the first time after the primary sheds most of its mass and
becomes a WD, mostly as a result of the MIEK mechanism. These findings motivate
a more detailed study of mass-loss in triple systems and the formation of close
NS/WD-MS and NS/WD-NS/WD binaries without an initial common envelope phase.
