The Occurrence of Circumbinary Planets Around TESS M-dwarf Eclipsing Binaries
Abstract
We present the first determination of the occurrence of transiting circumbinary planets (CBPs) in TESS data. Since tight binaries represent a constrained environment relative to single stars, CBPs contribute to our understanding of planet formation and evolution. We applied our custom single-transit detection algorithm to the recently-published sample of TESS eclipsing binaries containing two M-dwarfs (M\&Ms), finding only one signal attributable to a new candidate planet-sized object. We further performed sensitivity analysis and applied corrections to account for the TESS window function to arrive at our survey completeness. We find a 95\% confidence level (CL) upper limit on the occurrence rate of coplanar CBPs with sizes in the range 2−16 R⊕ and with orbital periods up to 600 days of 33.0\%. If the mutual inclinations of CBPs are isotropically distributed with respect to the binaries, the occurrence rate upper limit increases to 40.2\%. Our occurrence rate estimates are limited in part by the misalignment of our short-period binaries relative to the line of sight.
Related
- The occurrence rate of planets around subgiant stars from the TESS photometric survey
- The Occurrence Rate of Planets Around Subgiant Stars from TESS Photometric Survey
- Probing massive star formation with intrinsic multiplicity constraints from TESS eclipsing binaries
- Ensemble pulsational characteristics of eclipsing binaries containing β Cep stars observed by the TESS mission
- Circumbinary discs as the origin of circumstellar material around interacting H-poor supernovae and fast blue optical transients
BibTeX
@misc{oddo2026occurrence,
title = {{The Occurrence of Circumbinary Planets Around TESS M-dwarf Eclipsing Binaries}},
author = {Dominic Oddo and Diana Dragomir and David V. Martin and Wata Tubthong and Te Han},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.22625},
eprint = {2610.22625},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.22625},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - The Occurrence of Circumbinary Planets Around TESS M-dwarf Eclipsing Binaries
AU - Dominic Oddo
AU - Diana Dragomir
AU - David V. Martin
AU - Wata Tubthong
AU - Te Han
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/15
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.22625
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.22625
AB - We present the first determination of the occurrence of transiting circumbinary planets (CBPs) in TESS data. Since tight binaries represent a constrained environment relative to single stars, CBPs contribute to our understanding of planet formation and evolution. We applied our custom single-transit detection algorithm to the recently-published sample of TESS eclipsing binaries containing two M-dwarfs (M\&Ms), finding only one signal attributable to a new candidate planet-sized object. We further performed sensitivity analysis and applied corrections to account for the TESS window function to arrive at our survey completeness. We find a 95\% confidence level (CL) upper limit on the occurrence rate of coplanar CBPs with sizes in the range 2−16 R_⊕ and with orbital periods up to 600 days of 33.0\%. If the mutual inclinations of CBPs are isotropically distributed with respect to the binaries, the occurrence rate upper limit increases to 40.2\%. Our occurrence rate estimates are limited in part by the misalignment of our short-period binaries relative to the line of sight.
ER -