Eclipsing Binaries in the OGLE Variable Star Catalog.II. Light Curves of the W UMa-type Systems in Baade's Window

Light curves of the contact systems visible in the direction of Baade's Window have been analyzed using the first coefficients of the Fourier representation. The results confirm that the geometric contact between components is usually weak. Systems showing significant differences in the depths of eclipses are very rare in the volume-limited sample to 3 kpc: only 2 among 98 contact systems show the difference larger than 0.065 mag; for most systems the difference is <0.04 mag. If this relative frequency of 1/50 is representative, then one among 12,500 - 15,000 Main Sequence F-K spectral-type stars is either a semi-detached or poor-thermal-contact system. Below the orbital period of 0.37 day, no systems with appreciable differences in the eclipse depths have been discovered. Since large depth differences are expected to be associated with the "broken-contact" phase of the Thermal Relaxation Oscillations, this phase must be very short for orbital periods above 0.37 day and possibly entirely absent for shorter periods. In the full sample, which is dominated by intrinsically bright, distant, long-period systems, larger eclipse-depth differences are more common with about 9% of binaries showing this effect. Sizes of these differences correlate with the sense of light-curve asymmetries (differing heights of maxima) for systems with orbital periods longer than 0.4 day suggesting an admixture of semi-detached systems with accretion hot spots on cooler components. The light-curve amplitudes in the full sample as well as in its volume-limited sub-sample are surprisingly small and strongly suggest a mass-ratio distribution steeply rising toward more dissimilar components. Many low mass-ratio systems remain to be discovered in the sky field.Comment: latex 14 pages of text and 14 figures (aastex40 and psfig), submitted to AJ; the first paper astro-ph/9607009 will appear in AJ, Jan.199

The shortest-period M-dwarf eclipsing system BW3 V38

The photometric data for a short-period (0.1984 day) eclipsing binary V38 discovered by the OGLE micro-lensing team in Baade's W indow field BW3 have been analyzed. The de-reddened color (V-I_C)_0=2.3 and the light-curve synthesis solution of the I-filter light curve suggest a pair of strongly-distorted M-dwarfs, with parameters between those of YY Gem and CM Dra, revolving on a tightest known orbit among binaries consisting of Main Sequence stars. The primary, more massive and hotter, component maybe filling its Roche lobe. The very small amount of angular momentum in the orbital motion makes the system particularly important for studies of angular momentum loss at the faint end of the Main Sequence. Spectroscopic observations of the orbital radial velocity variations as well as of activity indicators are urgently needed for a better understanding of the angular-momentum and internal-structure evolutionary state of the system.Comment: latex aastex4.0, 16 pages, in that 4 figures (.ps inserted by psfig.sty) and one table; submitted to PAS

W~UMa-type Systems in the Central Baade Window Discovered in the OGLE Experiment

77 W~UMa-type systems to $I=18$ mag in one of the 21 fields of OGLE have been assessed in terms of utility for extraction of astrophysical information from time-independent data such as colors, periods, maximum magnitudes, and variability amplitudes in the final global OGLE catalog which will contain $>1000$ contact binaries. A subset of systems with absolute magnitudes $M_I < 3$ permits mapping of stellar distribution towards the Galactic Bulge to about 6~kpc from us, with indications that the reddening $E_{V-I} > 0.6$.Comment: text and 5 figures in PS format, packed with uufiles, submitted to ApJLet