A Few Years Later: Revisiting Period Variations of Eclipsing Binaries in the Northern Continuous Viewing Zone of TESS

TL;DR

This study extends previous analysis of eclipse timing variations in eclipsing binaries within TESS's Northern Continuous Viewing Zone, identifying additional triple star candidates and orbital variations with new data.

Contribution

It provides an updated, more confident catalog of hierarchical triple systems and evidence for additional stellar components affecting eclipse characteristics.

Findings

Identified at least 66 short-period hierarchical triples with high confidence.

Detected eclipse depth variations and disappearance in several binaries.

Found evidence for possible fourth stellar components in some systems.

Abstract

In our previous analysis of the eclipse timing variation patterns of eclipsing binaries located in and near the Northern Continuous Viewing Zone (NCVZ) of the TESS space telescope, 135 hierarchical triple star candidates were found. Now, two additional years of TESS observations are available and, hence, we have extended the former analysis with the use of the new observational data. We now detect 168 triple star candidates in the updated and reanalyzed sample. The majority ($\sim74\%$) of them are identical to the former triples candidates. For many of them, our new solutions are more certain than the original ones. Therefore, we can now conclude that we have identified at least 66 short-period hierarchical triple stellar systems in the NCVZ with full confidence. In the case of the majority of the remaining systems in our sample, the presence of a close third stellar component appears to be very likely. We also identify additional, longer timescale period variations in 34 systems ($20\%$ of the total sample) and conclude that in at least three systems the presence of a fourth stellar component is quite plausible. Finally, we report the complete disappearance of the eclipses in two former EBs and detect eclipse depth variations in seven other EBs as well. We interpret this effect as the consequence of changing orbital inclination caused by a non-coplanar third body.