Variability in the Milky Way: Contact binaries as diagnostic tools

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that contact binaries are effective distance indicators, providing a new method for measuring cosmic distances with less than 5% uncertainty, validated through observations of the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Contribution

The paper establishes new period-luminosity relations for contact binaries, enabling their use as precise distance tracers in astrophysics.

Findings

Contact binaries can serve as distance indicators with <5% uncertainty.

New period-luminosity relations for contact binaries were derived.

Application to the Large Magellanic Cloud yields a distance modulus of 18.41 mag.

Abstract

We used the 50 cm Binocular Network (50BiN) telescope at Delingha Station (Qinghai Province) of Purple Mountain Observatory (Chinese Academy of Sciences) to obtain simultaneous $V$- and $R$-band observations of the old open cluster NGC 188. Our aim was a search for populations of variable stars. We derived light-curve solutions for six W Ursae Majoris (W UMa) eclipsing-binary systems and estimated their orbital parameters. The resulting distance to the W UMas is independent of the physical characteristics of the host cluster. We next determined the current best period--luminosity relations for contact binaries (CBs; scatter $\sigma < 0.10$ mag). We conclude that CBs can be used as distance tracers with better than 5\% uncertainty. We apply our new relations to the 102 CBs in the Large Magellanic Cloud, which yields a distance modulus of $(m-M_V)_0=18.41\pm0.20$ mag.