Period–Luminosity–Metallicity–Color Relations of Late-type Contact Binaries in the Big Data Era

Abstract

Binary stars ubiquitous throughout the Universe are important. Contact binaries (CBs) possessing period–luminosity (PL) relations could be adopted as distance tracers. The PL relations of CBs are influenced by metallicity abundance and color index, which are connected to both the radius and luminosity of stars. Here we propose fine relations of the period–luminosity–metallicity–color (PLZC) from the ultraviolet to infrared bands based on current surveys. The accuracy of the distance estimation is 6% and 8%, respectively, depending on the PLZC relations of the CBs in the infrared and optical bands of the collected data. PLZC models are still more accurate than PLC models in determining intrinsic luminosity, notwithstanding their limited improvement. Meanwhile, these relations based on synthetic photometry are also calibrated. On the basis of the synthetic photometry, a 6% accuracy of distance is estimated. The measured or synthetic data of PLZC or PLC relations in infrared bands comes first in the list of suggestions for distance estimations and is followed by the measured data of optical bands.