Photometric and Spectroscopic analysis of eight totally eclipsing contact binaries with small mass ratios

TL;DR

This study conducts detailed photometric and spectroscopic analyses of eight totally eclipsing contact binaries with small mass ratios, revealing their physical parameters, contact types, and long-term period variations.

Contribution

It introduces a new method for modeling light curves without spots and applies comprehensive analysis to characterize small mass ratio contact binaries.

Findings

All eight targets are small mass ratio contact binaries below 0.25.

Four systems exhibit O'Connell effect, improved by adding dark spots.

Seven systems show long-term period changes, indicating mass transfer processes.

Abstract

This paper selected eight totally eclipsing contact binaries for photometric and spectroscopic studies, spectral data were analyzed by ULySS, and photometric data were analyzed using PHOEBE through MCMC sampling. We used two methods to calculate the initial values for running MCMC: one method is a new approach proposed by ourselves to model light curves without spots, while the other method is the genetic algorithm (GA) which can determine physical parameters with spot. Due to the results, these eight targets are all small mass ratio contact binary stars with a mass ratio below 0.25. There are four systems exhibiting O'Connell effect. By adding a dark spot on the primary component, the ideal fitting can be obtained. Meanwhile, it was found that two systems are shallow contact binaries, while the remaining six are moderate contact binaries. An O-C analysis of the eight eclipsing binary stars revealed that seven of them exhibit long-term changes. Four of them display a long-term decreasing trend, while the other three show a long-term increasing trend, and two targets exhibit periodic variations. The decrease in period may be caused by the transfer of matter from the more massive component to the less massive component, while the increase in period may be caused by the transfer of matter from the less massive component to the more massive component. The absolute physical parameters, orbital angular momentum, initial masses, and ages of these eight systems were calculated. Additionally, their mass-luminosity and mass-radius distributions were analyzed.