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The orbital stability of contact binary systems has been receivingconsiderable attention recently. Theoretical studies indicate that merger islikely to occur at very low mass ratios, but the actual mass ratio at whichmerger may take place is likely to be variable and dependent on the mass of theprimary. We consider the effects of metal content on the orbital stability ofcontact binary systems by modelling the gyration radius of a rotating andtidally distorted primary component at various values of metallicity in therange -1.25 to +0.5. We determine the instability mass ratio range for contactbinary systems with a low mass primary in the range 0.6M(sun) to 1.4M(sun) atvarious metallicity levels and show that systems with low metallicity have aninstability mass ratio lower than those with higher metal content and thereforeare likely to be more stable. We illustrate the effect through light curveanalysis of two otherwise very similar contact binary systems, except fordifferent metallicity. While both would be considered unstable if metallicitywas not taken into consideration, only one remains in that category afterappropriate adjustments based on metallicity have been made.

Effects of Metallicity on the Instability Mass Ratio of Low Mass Contact Binary Systems