a large tess sample of short period ellipsoidal binary candidates

• DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5128719
• Publication Date: 2021-01-01
• Authors: Green, Matthew; Maoz, Dan; Mazeh, Tsevi; Faigler, Simchon; Shahaf, Sahar; Gomel, Roy; El-Badry, Kareem; Rix, Hans-Walter; Almada, Silvia

Binaries with small orbital separations display photometric signatures that result from the tidal distortion of their component stars, as well as from Doppler beaming and from reflection. These signatures can be used to identify non-eclipsing binary systems, producing a sample whose selection effects differ from those of any eclipsing binary catalogue. We used the BEER algorithm (Faigler et al. 2011, 2013, 2015a, 2015b), which fits for all three of these effects, to search through the light-curves of 9,000,000 targets derived from the TESS full-frame images, and selected 50,000 candidate binaries with orbital periods < 7 days. We will present an overview of this sample, including its selection effects and contaminants, and we will show how the sample can be used to illuminate the underlying population of short-period binaries, in particular the distributions of periods and masses. In addition, hidden among the sample are likely to be a number of binaries with non-accreting neutron star or black hole companions. We will demonstrate how we have selected promising candidates for such compact binaries, and present our preliminary attempts to follow up on these candidates.