A Low Metallicity Massive Contact Binary Star System Candidate in WLM identified by Hubble and James Webb Space Telescope imaging

Abstract

We present archival HST and JWST ultraviolet through near infrared time series photometric observations of a massive minimal-contact binary candidate in the metal-poor galaxy WLM ($Z=0.14Z_{\odot }$). This discovery marks the lowest metallicity contact binary candidate observed to date. We determine the nature of the two stars in the binary by using the eclipsing binary modeling software (PHysics Of Eclipsing BinariEs; PHOEBE) to train a neural network to fit our observed panchromatic multi-epoch photometry. The best fit model consists of two hot MS stars ($T_1=29800_{-1700}^{+2300}$ K, $M_1=16_{-3}^{+2}{M}_{\odot }$, and $T_2=18000_{-5000}^{+5000}$ K, $M_2=7_{-3}^{+5}{M}_{\odot }$). We discuss plausible evolutionary paths for the system, and suggest the system is likely to be currently in a contact phase before ultimately ending in a merger. Future spectroscopy will help to further narrow down evolutionary pathways. This work showcases a novel use of data of JWST and HST imaging originally taken to characterize RR Lyrae. We expect time series imaging from LSST, BlackGEM, etc. to uncover similar types of objects in nearby galaxies.

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