Third components with elliptical orbits in the eclipsing binaries: EQ Tau, IR Cas, IV Cas, RY Aqr & RZ Com

TL;DR

This study investigates five eclipsing binary stars with cyclic O-C variations, focusing on third components with elliptical orbits, and calculates their mass transfer rates and third body masses.

Contribution

It extends previous research by analyzing five additional eclipsing binaries with elliptical third components and cyclic O-C variations.

Findings

All five stars exhibit cyclic O-C curves with superimposed parabolic trends.

Mass transfer rates and minimum third component masses were computed for each star.

Elliptical orbit parameters of third components were characterized.

Abstract

This research is our forth article related to the topic of cyclic O-C changes, third components as the physical process that cause these changes and elliptical orbits of the third components. Here five more eclipsing binary stars were investigated: EQ Tau, IR Cas, IV Cas, RY Aqr and RZ Com. All of them have cyclic O-C curve with superposition of parabolic trend. We computed the mass transfer rate, minima possible mass of the third component and their errors for each of the researched stars.