TESS light curves show tidal heartbeat signals at Gaia DR3 periastron times in eccentric binaries with periods of 13 to 150 days

Question: do eccentric Gaia DR3 single-lined binaries with periods of 13 to 150 days show tidal (heartbeat) brightness changes in TESS data at the periastron times that Gaia predicts? A prior Gaia and TESS search used only periods below 13 days. Method: We fitted a fixed-shape equilibrium-tide model (Gaia period, eccentricity and argument of periastron) to MIT QLP light curves of 1468 search targets (predicted tide amplitude above 1e-3) and 831 control targets (below 3e-5). Each periastron passage had a local quadratic baseline, and scattered-light cadences were masked. We then compared the best-fit periastron time with the Gaia prediction. Results: In 414 search targets with a usable Gaia time window, 158 best fits fall in the window, against 82.1 expected by chance (Poisson-binomial p = 1.9e-18). For peak ratio above 3 the count is 76 against 32.2. The control sample agrees with chance (52 against 44.6; 16 against 16.0). The in-window fraction increases with the predicted tide amplitude. A per-passage repeat test gives 22 grade-A candidates with periods of 13.1 to 30.1 days. The test passes 1 of 70 control fits, so we expect approximately 0.5 false grade-A matches. Two grade-A targets show eclipses. For the other 20, the fitted amplitude agrees with the Gaia-based tide estimate (median log ratio +0.02, Spearman rho 0.48, p = 0.03). SIMBAD lists no heartbeat or eclipse study for any candidate. Examples are HD 193389, HD 30911, HD 78109 and TYC 4197-1975-1. Limitations: All photometry is QLP FFI data; we did no pixel-level centroid test and no independent photometric confirmation. Injection tests recover 45 to 75 percent of signals at 3 to 100 times the bin noise, so the list is incomplete. Only 427 of 1468 search targets had a sufficiently precise Gaia time. Half of the clean candidates have fit coefficients outside the simple tide model range.

heartbeat stars · eccentric binaries · tidal distortion · Gaia DR3 · spectroscopic binaries · TESS · QLP · periastron · population timing test · injection recovery