A Solar-type Stellar Companion to a Deep Contact Binary in a Quadruple System

TL;DR

This study analyzes the overcontact binary V776 Cas, revealing a quadruple system with a solar-type stellar companion, and discusses its evolutionary stage, period variations, and the influence of a tertiary component.

Contribution

It provides detailed analysis of V776 Cas as a quadruple system with a solar-type companion, including orbital parameters and evolutionary implications, which is a novel insight into such systems.

Findings

V776 Cas is an early F-type overcontact binary with high contact degree.

A third component causes cyclic period variation via LTTE.

The tertiary companion has a mass of about 1.04 solar masses.

Abstract

The four-color ($B$ $V$ $R_c$ $I_c$) light curves of V776 Cas are presented and analyzed using the Wilson-Devinney (W-D) method. It is discovered that V776 Cas is an early F-type (F2V) overcontact binary with a very high contact degree ($ f=64.6\,\%$) and an extremely low mass ratio ($q=0.130$), which indicate that it is at the final evolutionary stage of cool short-period binaries. The mass of the primary and secondary stars are calculated to be $M_1 = 1.55(\pm0.04)M_\odot$, $M_2 = 0.20(\pm0.01)M_\odot$. V776 Cas is supposed to be formed from an initially detached binary system via the loss of angular momentum due to the magnetic wind. The initial mass of the present primary and secondary components are calculated to be $M_{1i} = 0.86(\pm0.10)M_\odot$ and $M_{2i} = 2.13(\pm0.04)M_\odot$. The observed-calculated ($O$-$C$) curve exhibits a cyclic period variation, which is due to the light-travel time effect (LTTE) caused by the presence of a third component with a period of 23.7 years. The mass of the third component is estimated to be $M_3 = 1.04(\pm0.03)M_\odot$ and the orbital inclination of the third component is calculated to be $i' = 33.1^{\circ}$. The distance of the binary system to the mass center of the triple system is calculated to be $a'_{12} = 3.45AU$. The presence of the close-in tertiary component may play an important role in the formation and evolution of this binary system by drawing angular momentum from the central system.