Related papers: High Tide: A Systematic Search for Ellipsoidal Var…
Most dynamically confirmed stellar-mass black holes and the candidates were originally selected from X-ray outbursts. In the present work, we search for black hole candidates in the LAMOST survey by using the spectra along with photometry…
As part of Gaia Data Release 3, supervised classification identified a large number of ellipsoidal variables, for which the periodic variability is presumably induced by tidal interaction with a companion in a close binary system. In this…
We explore the synergy between photometric and spectroscopic surveys by searching for periodic variable stars among the targets observed by the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) using photometry from the…
Stars with an initial mass more than ~25 Msun are thought to ultimately become black holes. Then stellar-mass black holes should be ubiquitous but fewer than 20 have been found in our Galaxy to date, all of which have been found through…
We present multi-epoch spectroscopic follow-up of a sample of ellipsoidal variables selected from Gaia DR3 as candidates for hosting quiescent black holes (BHs) and neutron stars (NSs). Our targets were identified as BH/NS candidates…
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 is based on identifying a star that displays a large…
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 and black hole formation is uncertain by multiple orders of…
The All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) provides long baseline (${\sim}4$ yrs) $V-$band light curves for sources brighter than V$\lesssim17$ mag across the whole sky. We produced V-band light curves for a total of ${\sim}61.5$…
We analyze the photometry of 117 OGLE stars with periodic transit events for the presence of ellipsoidal light variations, which indicate the presence of massive companions. We find that ~50% of objects may have stellar companions, mostly…
Hundreds of substellar companions to solar-type stars will be discovered with the Kepler satellite. Kepler's extreme photometric precision gives access to low-amplitude stellar variability contributed by a variety of physical processes. We…
Identifying sources exhibiting ellipsoidal variability in large photometric surveys is becoming a promising method to search for candidate detached black holes in binaries. This technique aims to exploit the orbital-phase dependent…
Gravitational-wave detections have revealed a previously unknown population of stellar mass black holes with masses above $20\, M_{\odot}$. These observations provide a new way to test models of stellar evolution for massive stars. By…
Light curves of ellipsoidal variables collected by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) were analyzed, in order to search for dormant black hole candidates. After the preselection based on the amplitude of ellipsoidal…
We report the discovery of the first likely black hole in a non-interacting binary system with a field red giant. By combining radial velocity measurements from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) with…
The recent Gaia Focused Product Release contains radial velocity time-series for more than 9,000 Gaia long-period photometric variables. Here we search for binary systems with large radial velocity amplitudes to identify candidates with…
Compact objects observed via gravitational waves are classified as black holes or neutron stars primarily based on their inferred mass with respect to stellar evolution expectations. However, astrophysical expectations for the lowest mass…
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 cases, a dormant neutron star. The detection of such a binary…
Gravitational waves from the merger of two neutron stars cannot be easily distinguished from those produced by a comparable-mass mixed binary in which one of the companions is a black hole. Low-mass black holes are interesting because they…
We find that the majority of systems hosting multiple tidal disruptions are likely to contain hard binary SMBH systems, and also show that the rates of these repeated events are high enough to be detected by LSST over its lifetime.…
Rotational variables are stars that vary in brightness due to star spots modulated by rotation. They are probes of stellar magnetism, binarity, and evolution. Phillips et al. (2023) explored distinct populations of ~50,000 high-amplitude…