Hundreds of new periodic signals detected in the first year of $\it{TESS}$ with the ${\tt weirddetector}$

TL;DR

This paper introduces ${\tt weirddetector}$, a nonparametric algorithm applied to TESS data, discovering hundreds of new periodic signals with minimal assumptions about their shape, including potential planets and eclipsing binaries.

Contribution

The study presents a novel, shape-agnostic detection method for periodic signals in TESS data, uncovering 377 previously unreported signals, including ultra-short periods and planet-like candidates.

Findings

Detected 377 new periodic signals in TESS data.

Achieved 97% recall of eclipsing binaries and 62% of TOIs.

Identified ultra-short period signals and potential exoplanets.

Abstract

We apply the ${\tt weirddetector}$, a nonparametric signal detection algorithm based on phase dispersion minimization, in a search for low duty-cycle periodic signals in the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (${\it TESS}$) photometry. Our approach, in contrast to commonly used model-based approaches specifically for flagging transits, eclipsing binaries, or other similarly periodic events, makes minimal assumptions about the shape of a periodic signal, with the goal of finding "weird" signals of unexpected or arbitrary shape. In total, 248,301 ${\it TESS}$ sources from the first-year Southern sky survey are run through the ${\tt weirddetector}$, of which we manually inspect the top 21,500 for periodicity. To minimize false-positives, we here only report on the upper decile in terms of signal score, a sample for which we obtain 97% recall of ${\it TESS}$ eclipsing binaries and 62% of the TOIs. In our sample, we find 377 previously unreported periodic signals, for which we make a first-pass assignment that 26 are ultra-short periods ($<0.3$ d), 313 are likely eclipsing binaries, 28 appear planet-like, and 10 are miscellaneous signals.