TIC 454140642: A Compact, Coplanar, Quadruple-lined Quadruple Star System Consisting of Two Eclipsing Binaries

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery and detailed analysis of a rare, compact, coplanar quadruple star system with two eclipsing binaries, revealing their orbital parameters, mutual inclinations, and dynamical interactions from TESS data.

Contribution

It presents the first detailed characterization of TIC 454140642, a quadruple star system with two eclipsing binaries, including orbital inclinations, periods, and evidence of gravitational interactions.

Findings

Two eclipsing binaries with periods of 13.624 and 10.393 days.

Mutual orbital inclinations less than 0.5 degrees, indicating coplanarity.

The A-B system has a 432-day orbit with eccentricity 0.3.

Abstract

We report the discovery of a compact, coplanar, quadruply-lined, eclipsing quadruple star system from TESS data, TIC 454140642, also known as TYC 0074-01254-1. The target was first detected in Sector 5 with 30-min cadence in Full-Frame Images and then observed in Sector 32 with 2-min cadence. The light curve exhibits two sets of primary and secondary eclipses with periods of PA = 13.624 days (binary A) and PB = 10.393 days (binary B). Analysis of archival and follow-up data shows clear eclipse-timing variations and divergent radial velocities, indicating dynamical interactions between the two binaries and confirming that they form a gravitationally-bound quadruple system with a 2+2 hierarchy. The Aa+Ab binary, Ba+Bb binary, and A-B system are aligned with respect to each other within a fraction of a degree: the respective mutual orbital inclinations are 0.25 degrees (A vs B), 0.37 degrees (A vs A-B), and 0.47 degrees (B vs A-B). The A-B system has an orbital period of 432 days - the second shortest amongst confirmed quadruple systems - and an orbital eccentricity of 0.3.