Is V899 Herculis an unsolved quadruple system containing double close binary stars?

Abstract

Orbital period variation of the W UMa-type eclipsing binary, V899 Herculis, discovered by the Hipparcos satellite was investigated based on all available photoelectric and CCD times of light minimum. It is discovered that the orbital period of the binary shows a cyclic change with an amplitude of 0.0117 days. The cyclic period change can be explained as the light-travel time orbit of a tertiary component in the system, which is in agreement with the spectroscopic result obtained by Lu et al. [Lu, W., Rucinski, S.M., Ogloza, W., 2001. AJ 122, 402] who found that the system, of which V899 Herculis is a fainter component (B), is a triple, even quadruple and with the photometric result obtained by Özdemir et al. [Özdemir, S., Demircan, O., Erdem, A., Cicek, C., Bulut, I., Soydugan, E., Soydugan, F., 2002. A&A 387, 240] who reported a large amount of third light ( L 3 ∼ 0.68) of the system. The third body (A) rotates around the eclipsing pair in a period of 3.7 years. Lu et al. [Lu, W., Rucinski, S.M., Ogloza, W., 2001. AJ 122, 402] reported that the tertiary component is F5-type main-sequence star. However, the present analysis shows that the mass of the third component is no less than 2.8 M ⊙, which is larger than the mass of an F5-type main-sequence star suggesting that the tertiary component may be a non-eclipsing close binary. Therefore, the system may be a possible unsolved quadruple system containing double close binary stars. It is a good astrophysical laboratory to study the formation and evolution of binary and multiple system. The timescale for the formation of the G-type overcontact binary (V899 Herculis) via AML should be shorter than the main-sequence time of an F5-type star.