A Mechanism for Producing Short-Period Binaries

Updated catalogue of the light curve solutions of contact binary stars

“…This issue was recently empirically investigated by Kalimeris & Rovithis-Livaniou (2000), Csizmadia & Klagyivik (2004), and Awadalla & Hanna (2005) to find the exact form of these relations. The formation of these systems is not understood yet (Paczynski et al 2006), and their final stage is not clear (Eggleton 2006). During the contact evolution, the shape of the light curve can easily be explained by the Lucy's (1968) model which assumes that the luminosity of the primary star is transferred to the secondary star via the common envelope and this equalizes the surface luminosities.A useful overview of the theories of contact binaries can be found in Webbink (2003).…”