Study on Contact Binary Stars

A special issue of Galaxies (ISSN 2075-4434).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2025 | Viewed by 142

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Shandong Key Laboratory of Optical Astronomy and Solar-Terrestrial Environment, School of Space Science and Physics, Institute of Space Sciences, Shandong University, Weihai 264209, China
Interests: contact binary; mass ratio, short period cut-off; O’Connell effect; orbital period variation

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Guest Editor
LUX, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, PSL, 61 Avenue de l’Observatoire, 75014 Paris, France
Interests: contact binary; light curve solutions; fundamental parameters; stellar evolution; observation process

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the Universe, more than half of the stars are in the binary star system. A contact binary is one type of close binary where both components fill their Roche lobes and share a common convective envelope. It is estimated that about one of every 500 F, G, and K main sequence stars is a contact binary in our galaxy. The orbital period of a contact binary is generally shorter than 0.5 days. They are very important tools for determining precise physical parameters of stars and for distance measurement. Decades of research on contact binaries have led to significant achievements in understanding stellar formation, evolution, and advancing astrophysics. There are many exciting and rewarding topics about contact binaries that are still controversial; these include, for example, the 0.22 day shortperiod cutoff, the minimum mass ratio, the O’Connell effect, and the thermal relaxation oscillation theory. To better understand these issues, a large number of contact binaries should be observed and analzyed. Due to ground- and space-based photometric surveys, more than one million contact binaries have been detected. This Special Issue aims to foster collaboration and drive collective progress in addressing some of these issues by analyzing a substantial number of contact binaries.

Dr. Kai Li
Dr. Atila Poro
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • contact binary
  • O’Connell effect
  • shortperiod cutoff
  • minimum mass ratio
  • orbital period change
  • light curve analysis
  • radial velocity curve

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