A photometric study of the high-mass-ratio contact binary AV Puppis

Abstract

Abstract The multi-color photometric light curves for contact binary AV Puppis (AV Pup) in VRcIc bandpasses are presented and analyzed by using the 2013 version of the Wilson-Devinney (W-D) code. The solutions suggest that AV Pup is a peculiar A-subtype W UMa contact binary with a high mass ratio (q = m 2/m 1 = 0.896) and a low fill-out factor (f = 10%). Combining our newly determined times of minimum with those collected from literatures, the orbital period changes of this system are investigated. The O – C analysis indicates that the orbital period of AV Pup is increasing at a rate of dP/dt = 4.83 × 10−7 days yr−1, which can be explained by mass transfer from the less massive component to the more massive one.