Publications (28)
BEER analysis of Kepler and CoRoT light curves: I. Discovery of Kepler-76b: A hot Jupiter with evidence for superrotation
Simchon Faigler, Lev Tal-Or, Tsevi Mazeh +2
We present the first case in which the BEER algorithm identified a hot Jupiter in the Kepler light curve, and its reality was confirmed by orbital solutions based on follow-up spec…
Photometric detection of non-transiting short-period low-mass companions through the beaming, ellipsoidal and reflection effects in Kepler and CoRoT lightcurves
Simchon Faigler, Tsevi Mazeh
We present a simple algorithm, BEER, to search for a combination of the BEaming, Ellipsoidal and the Reflection/heating periodic modulations, induced by short-period non-transiting…
BEER analysis of Kepler and CoRoT light curves. III. Spectroscopic confirmation of seventy new beaming binaries discovered in CoRoT light curves
Lev Tal-Or, Simchon Faigler, Tsevi Mazeh
(abridged for arXiv) The BEER algorithm searches stellar light curves for the BEaming, Ellipsoidal, and Reflection photometric modulations that are caused by a short-period compani…
MESS: Multi-Epoch Spectroscopic Solver for Detecting Double-Lined Systems
Gil Nachmani, Simchon Faigler, Tsevi Mazeh
We present MESS, a fully automated algorithm for identifying and characterizing double-lined spectroscopic binaries (SB2) in large databases of multi-epoch spectra. MESS extends th…
BEER analysis of Kepler and CoRoT light curves: discovering binaries and exoplanets
Simchon Faigler
This thesis consists of seven scientific papers that cover the proof-of-concept, the development, and discoveries made through the use of the BEER (BEaming, Ellipsoidal, and Reflec…
Different Planetary Eccentricity-Period (PEP) Distributions of Small- and Giant-Planets
Dolev Bashi, Tsevi Mazeh, Simchon Faigler
We used the database of short-period ( days) exoplanets radial-velocity (RV) orbits to study the planetary eccentricity-period (PEP) distribution. We first d…
BEER analysis of Kepler and CoRoT light curves: IV. Discovery of four new low-mass white dwarf companions in the Kepler data
Simchon Faigler, Ilya Kull, Tsevi Mazeh +3
We report the discovery of four short-period eclipsing systems in the Kepler light curves, consisting of an A-star primary and a low-mass white dwarf (WD) secondary (dA+WD) - KIC 4…
A Sun-like star orbiting a black hole
Kareem El-Badry, Hans-Walter Rix, Eliot Quataert +18
We report discovery of a bright, nearby () Sun-like star orbiting a dark object. We identified the system as a black hole candidate via its astrometri…
SB 796: a high-velocity RRc star
Roy Gomel, Sahar Shahaf, Tsevi Mazeh +6
We report here on a detailed study of a c-type RR Lyrae variable (RRc variable), SB 796, serendipitously discovered in a search of the WASP public data for stars that display large…
A red giant orbiting a black hole
Kareem El-Badry, Hans-Walter Rix, Yvette Cendes +18
We report spectroscopic and photometric follow-up of a dormant black hole (BH) candidate from Gaia DR3. The system, which we call Gaia BH2, contains a red giant a…
BEER analysis of Kepler and CoRoT light curves: II. Evidence for superrotation in the phase curves of three Kepler hot Jupiters
Simchon Faigler, Tsevi Mazeh
We analyzed the Kepler light curves of four transiting hot Jupiter systems --- KOI-13, HAT-P-7, TrES-2, and Kepler-76, which show BEaming, Ellipsoidal and Reflection (BEER) phase m…
Study of the mass-ratio distribution of spectroscopic binaries. I. A novel algorithm
Sahar Shahaf, Tsevi Mazeh, Simchon Faigler
We developed a novel direct algorithm to derive the mass-ratio distribution (MRD) of short-period binaries from an observed sample of single-lined spectroscopic binaries (SB1). The…
Search for Dormant Black Holes in Ellipsoidal Variables II. A Binary Modified Minimum Mass Ratio
Roy Gomel, Simchon Faigler, Tsevi Mazeh
This is the second of a series of papers that focuses on searching large sets of photometric light curves for evidence of close binaries with a dormant black hole, and, in some cas…
Search for Dormant Black Holes in Ellipsoidal Variables I. Revisiting the Expected Amplitudes of the Photometric Modulation
Roy Gomel, Simchon Faigler, Tsevi Mazeh
Ellipsoidal variables present light-curve modulations caused by stellar distortion, induced by tidal interaction with their companions. An analytical approximated model of the elli…
Gaia Spectroscopic Orbits Validated with LAMOST and GALAH Radial Velocities
Dolev Bashi, Sahar Shahaf, Tsevi Mazeh +5
The recently published Gaia DR3 catalog of 181327 spectroscopic binaries (SB) includes the Keplerian elements of each orbit but not the measured radial velocities (RVs) and their e…
Seventy new non-eclipsing BEER binaries discovered in CoRoT lightcurves and confirmed by RVs from AAOmega
Lev Tal-Or, Simchon Faigler, Tsevi Mazeh
We applied the BEER algorithm to the CoRoT lightcurves from the first five LRc fields and identified non-eclipsing BEER candidates with periodic lightcurve modulations and am…
Dearth of short-period Neptunian exoplanets - a desert in period-mass and period-radius planes
Tsevi Mazeh, Tomer Holczer, Simchon Faigler
A few studies have reported a significant dearth of exoplanets with Neptune mass and radius with orbital periods below -- d. This cannot be explained by observational biases…
Search for Dormant Black Holes in Ellipsoidal Variables III. The OGLE BULGE Short-Period Sample
Roy Gomel, Simchon Faigler, Tsevi Mazeh +1
This is the third of a series of papers that presents an algorithm to search for close binaries with massive, possibly compact, unseen secondaries. The detection of such a binary i…
fBLS -- a fast-folding BLS algorithm
Sahar Shahaf, Barak Zackay, Tsevi Mazeh +2
We present fBLS -- a novel fast-folding technique to search for transiting planets, based on the fast-folding algorithm (FFA), which is extensively used in pulsar astronomy. For a…
Features of Gaia DR3 Spectroscopic Binaries I. Tidal circularization of Main-Sequence Stars
Dolev Bashi, Tsevi Mazeh, Simchon Faigler
Previous studies pointed out that many observed samples of short-period binaries display a cutoff period, , such that almost all binaries with periods shorter than $P_…
Does the HR 6819 triple system contain a dormant black hole? Not necessarily
Tsevi Mazeh, Simchon Faigler
A recent paper by Rivinius et al. proposed that HR 6819 is a triple system, with a distant Be star and a binary of 40-day orbit, composed of a B3 III giant and a dormant black hole…
Triage of Astrometric Binaries - how to find triple systems and dormant black-hole secondaries in the Gaia orbits
Sahar Shahaf, Tsevi Mazeh, Simchon Faigler +1
Preparing for the expected wealth of Gaia detections, we consider here a simple algorithm for classifying unresolved astrometric binaries with main-sequence (MS) primary into three…
Detection of the ellipsoidal and the relativistic beaming effects in the CoRoT-3 lightcurve
Tsevi Mazeh, Simchon Faigler
CoRoT-3b is a 22 Jupiter-mass massive-planet/brown-dwarf object, orbiting an F3-star with a period of 4.3 days. We analyzed the out-of-transit CoRoT-3 red-channel lightcurve obtain…
Revisiting Stellar equatorial rotational velocities with Gaia DR3 line broadening -- the dependence on temperature, mass and age
Amitay Sussholz, Tsevi Mazeh, Simchon Faigler
We used more than Gaia DR3 line broadening vbroad measurements to examine stellar rotation as a function of stellar temperature, mass and age. The large sample clearly displ…
15000 Ellipsoidal Binary Candidates in TESS: Orbital Periods, Binary Fraction, and Tertiary Companions
Matthew J. Green, Dan Maoz, Tsevi Mazeh +5
We present a homogeneously-selected sample of 15779 candidate binary systems with main sequence primary stars and orbital periods shorter than 5 days. The targets were selected fro…
Triage of the Gaia DR3 astrometric orbits. I. A sample of binaries with probable compact companions
Sahar Shahaf, Dolev Bashi, Tsevi Mazeh +4
In preparation for the release of the astrometric orbits of Gaia, Shahaf et al. (2019) proposed a triage technique to identify astrometric binaries with compact companions based on…
An upper limit on the frequency of short-period black hole companions to Sun-like stars
Matthew J. Green, Yoav Ziv, Hans-Walter Rix +9
Stellar-mass black holes descend from high-mass stars, most of which had stellar binary companions. However, the number of those binary systems that survive the binary evolution an…
Probable Dormant Neutron Star in a Short-Period Binary System
Tsevi Mazeh, Simchon Faigler, Dolev Bashi +24
We have identified 2XMM J125556.57+565846.4, at a distance of 600 pc, as a binary system consisting of a normal star and a probable dormant neutron star. Optical spectra exhibit a…