Kavli Affiliate: Christopher J. Burke
| First 5 Authors: Brian P. Powell, Veselin B. Kostov, Saul A. Rappaport, Tamas Borkovits, Petr Zasche
| Summary:
We report the discovery of a sextuply-eclipsing sextuple star system from
TESS data, TIC 168789840, also known as TYC 7037-89-1, the first known sextuple
system consisting of three eclipsing binaries. The target was observed in
Sectors 4 and 5 during Cycle 1, with lightcurves extracted from TESS Full Frame
Image data. It was also previously observed by the WASP survey and ASAS-SN. The
system consists of three gravitationally-bound eclipsing binaries in a
hierarchical structure of an inner quadruple system with an outer binary
subsystem. Follow-up observations from several different observatories were
conducted as a means of determining additional parameters. The system was
resolved by speckle interferometry with a 0."42 separation between the inner
quadruple and outer binary, inferring an estimated outer period of ~2 kyr. It
was determined that the fainter of the two resolved components is an 8.217 day
eclipsing binary, which orbits the inner quadruple that contains two eclipsing
binaries with periods of 1.570 days and 1.306 days. MCMC analysis of the
stellar parameters has shown that the three binaries of TIC 168789840 are
"triplets", as each binary is quite similar to the others in terms of mass,
radius, and Teff. As a consequence of its rare composition, structure, and
orientation, this object can provide important new insight into the formation,
dynamics, and evolution of multiple star systems. Future observations could
reveal if the intermediate and outer orbital planes are all aligned with the
planes of the three inner eclipsing binaries.
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