Description
A significant fraction of stars have stellar companions and exist in double, triple, or higher order configurations. For example, binary star systems encompass 33% of systems within 25 parsecs. Binary stars are valued scientifically because they allow for the measurements of fundamental stellar properties such as mass, radius, and age. These properties in turn allow for detailed studies of stellar evolution. With triple star systems, these parameters can often be calculated with even greater precision. The Kepler telescope has discovered roughly 3000 eclipsing binary stars in its field of view. Using previously measured eclipse times for a large sample of these eclipsing binaries, we searched for systems with close-in tertiary companions. These tertiaries are particularly interesting because they have periods that are less than five-to-ten years in length. Various studies by other groups have shown that roughly 20% of systems in the sample of Kepler eclipsing binaries contain companions and our results confirm it. We present light-travel time orbits to 30 of these systems and also present here the results of detailed modeling of two of these systems that have tertiary eclipses.
