HW Persei: An Eclipsing Binary at Critical Contact?

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Abstract
A complete photometric analysis for the eclipsing binary candidate HW Persei is presented. The UBV observations were taken at Lowell Observatory in 1996 January. Three epochs of minimum light were determined, and an improved linear ephemeris was calculated. The O - C residuals, spanning some 60 years, show no evidence of a period change. Standard magnitudes are given, and reddening estimates are made. The first published synthetic light curve solutions of HW Per reveal that it is near a state of critical contact, which we define as both components exactly filling their respective Roche lobes. The primary component is of A8 spectral type, and the secondary component is a K3–K4 spectral type. The nature of the model is discussed.

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