Related papers: Binary stars: a cheat sheet
Russell (1948) famously described eclipses as the "royal road" to stellar astrophysics. From photometric and spectroscopic observations it is possible to measure the masses and radii (to 1% or better!), and thus surface gravities and mean…
Eclipsing binary star systems provide the most accurate method of measuring both the masses and radii of stars. Moreover, they enable testing tidal synchronization and circularization theories, as well as constraining models of stellar…
Eclipsing binary systems with pulsating components offer a unique possibility to accurately measure the most important parameters of pulsating stars, to study their evolution, and to test the pulsation theory. I will show what we can learn…
Stellar fundamental properties (masses, radii, effective temperatures) can be extracted from observations of eclipsing binary systems with remarkable precision, often better than 2%. Such precise measurements afford us the opportunity to…
The study of eclipsing binaries is our primary source of measured properties of normal stars, achieved through analysis of light and radial velocity curves of eclipsing systems. The study of oscillations and pulsations is increasingly vital…
Eclipsing binaries are vital for directly determining stellar parameters without reliance on models or scaling relations. Spectroscopically derived parameters of detached and semi-detached binaries allow us to determine component masses…
Astronomical polarimetry is a powerful technique that can provide physical information sometimes difficult or impossible to obtain by any other type of observation. Almost every class of binary star can benefit from polarimetric…
High-precision radial-velocity techniques, which enabled the detection of extrasolar planets are now sensitive to relativistic effects in the data of spectroscopic binary stars (SBs). We show how these effects can be used to derive the…
The fundamental properties of detached eclipsing binary stars can be measured very accurately, which could make them important objects for constraining the treatment of convection in theoretical stellar models. However, only four or five…
Eclipsing binary stars provide highly accurate measurements of the fundamental physical properties of stars. They therefore serve as stringent tests of the predictions of evolutionary models upon which most stellar age determinations are…
Stellar models of massive single stars are still plagued by major uncertainties. Testing and calibrating against observations is essential for their reliability. For this purpose one preferably uses observed stars that have never…
Eclipsing binary stars have long served as benchmark systems to measure fundamental stellar properties. In the past few decades, asteroseismology - the study of stellar pulsations - has emerged as a new powerful tool to study the structure…
We have begun a programme to obtain high-precision photometry of bright detached eclipsing binary (dEB) stars with the Wide field InfraRed Explorer (WIRE) satellite. Due to the small aperture of WIRE only stars brighter than V=6 can be…
Detached eclipsing double line spectroscopic binaries offer an opportunity to measure directly stellar parameters: mass, luminosity, radius, as well as the distance. The only non-trivial step is the need to determine surface brightness of…
Full tests to stellar models below 1 Msun have been hindered until now by the scarce number of precise measurements of the stars' most fundamental parameters: their masses and radii. With the current observational techniques, the required…
Binary systems anchor many of the fundamental relations relied upon in asteroseismology. Masses and radii are rarely constrained better than when measured via orbital dynamics and eclipse depths. Pulsating binaries have much to offer. They…
This paper reviews methods which can be used to detect binaries involving low- and intermediate-mass stars, with special emphasis on evolved systems. Besides the traditional methods involving radial-velocity or photometric monitoring, the…
Mass and radius measurements of stars are important inputs for models of stellar structure. Binary stars are of particular interest in this regard, because astrometry and spectroscopy of a binary together provide the masses of both stars as…
Pulsating stars in eclipsing binary systems play an important role in asteroseismology. The combination of their spectroscopic and photometric orbital solutions can be used to determine, or at least to constrain, the masses and radii of…
Exoplanet transit and Doppler surveys discover many binary stars during their operation that can be used to conduct a variety of ancillary science. Specifically, eclipsing binary stars can be used to study the stellar mass-radius…