Photometric and Spectroscopic Analysis of Eight Totally Eclipsing Contact Binaries with Small Mass Ratios

Abstract

This paper selected eight totally eclipsing contact binaries for photometric and spectroscopic studies. Spectral data were analyzed by University of Lyon Spectroscopic analysis Software, and photometric data were analyzed using PHOEBE through Markov Chain Monte Carlo (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, which can determine physical parameters with spots. The results imply that these eight targets are all contact binary stars with a small mass ratio below 0.25. There are four systems exhibiting the 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 in orbital period, while the other three show a long-term increasing trend, and two targets exhibit periodic variations. A decrease in period may be caused by the transfer of matter from the more massive component to the less massive component, while an increase in period may be caused by transfer in the opposite way. 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.