Temperature and Distance Dependence of Tidal Circularization in Close Binaries: A Catalog of Eclipsing Binaries in the Southern Hemisphere Observed by the TESS Satellite

TL;DR

This study analyzes how tidal forces influence the circularization of close binary star orbits across various temperatures and separations, using TESS data combined with ground and Kepler observations.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive catalog of eclipsing binaries with derived parameters and compares observed eccentricities with tidal theory predictions across a wide parameter space.

Findings

Cool binaries align with equilibrium tide predictions.

Binaries with 6250-10000 K often have circular orbits contrary to dynamical tide models.

Some radiative-envelope binaries circularize more efficiently than expected.

Abstract

Tidal forces are important for understanding how close binary stars and compact exoplanetary systems form and evolve. However, tides are difficult to model and significant uncertainties exist about the strength of tides. Here, we investigate tidal circularization in close binaries using a large sample of well-characterised eclipsing systems. We searched TESS photometry from the southern hemisphere for eclipsing binaries. We derive best-fit orbital and stellar parameters by jointly modelling light curves and spectral energy distributions. To determine the eccentricity distribution of eclipsing binaries over a wide range of stellar temperatures ($3\,000-50\,000\,$K) and orbital separations $a/R_1$ ($2-300$), we combine our newly obtained TESS sample with eclipsing binaries observed from the ground and by the Kepler mission. We find a clear dependency of stellar temperature and orbital separation in the eccentricities of close binaries. We compare our observations with predictions of the equilibrium and dynamical tides. We find that while cool binaries agree with the predictions of the equilibrium tide, a large fraction of binaries with temperatures between $6\,250\,$K and $10\,000\,$K and orbital separations between $a/R_1 \sim 4$ and $10$ are found on circular orbits contrary to the predictions of the dynamical tide. This suggests that some binaries with radiative envelopes may be tidally circularised significantly more efficiently than usually assumed. Our findings on orbital circularization have important implications also in the context of hot Jupiters where tides have been invoked to explain the observed difference in the spin-orbit alignment between hot and cool host stars.