Recently, our understanding of the origin of W UMa-type contact binaries has become clearer. Initial masses of their components were successfully estimated by Yildiz and Dougan using a new method mainly based on observational properties of overluminous secondary components. In this paper, we continue to discuss the results and make computations for age and orbital evolution of these binaries. It is shown that the secondary mass, according to its luminosity, also successfully predicts the observed radius. While the current mass of the primary component is determined by initial masses, the current secondary mass is also a function of initial angular momentum. We develop methods to compute the age of A- and W-subtype W UMa-type contact binaries {in terms of} initial masses and mass according to the luminosity of the secondaries.
Author: Mutlu Yildiz