A comprehensive photometric analysis of the shallow contact binary IR Vir

The light curves (LC(s)) of the shallow contact binary (SCB(s)) IR Vir were retrieved from the TESS, Kepler (K2), ASAS, ASAS-SN, and KWS databases and comprehensively analyzed in this paper. For IR Vir, a q search was conducted to determine the mass ratio, which was found to be $0.371\pm 0.008$. The analysis indicates that IR Vir was a typical A-type W UMa. Since the determination of absolute parameters is crucial for analyzing the evolution of such systems, the masses of the bodies of IR Vir were estimated as $M_1=1.03\pm 0.10$ M${}_{\odot }$, $M_2=0.38\pm 0.05$ M${}_{\odot }$, and the radii as $R_1=1.16\pm 0.06$ R${}_{\odot }$, $R_2=0.73\pm 0.04$ R${}_{\odot }$. In the analysis of the orbital period (OP(s)) for IR Vir, it was found that the OP of IR Vir was increasing, and this value was calculated to be 0.0376 s per year. The OP increase can be explained by the conserved mass exchange between the bodies, and it can be proposed to be from the low mass body to the more one. This value was calculated as $2.4\times 10^{-7}$ $M_{\odot }$ per year. Furthermore, a sinusoidal change in the OP was also identified, and it was proposed that this could be attributed to the presence of a third body or magnetic activity. Finally, to gain a better understanding of the nature of IR Vir, it was positioned in the logM${}_{tot}$ $-$ logJ and HR (Hertzsprung-Russell) diagrams.