<i>KEPLER</i>ECLIPSING BINARY STARS. I. CATALOG AND PRINCIPAL CHARACTERIZATION OF 1879 ECLIPSING BINARIES IN THE FIRST DATA RELEASE

Abstract

The Kepler space mission is devoted to finding Earth-size planets in\nhabitable zones orbiting other stars. Its large, 105-deg field-of-view features\nover 156,000 stars that are observed continuously to detect and characterize\nplanet transits. Yet this high-precision instrument holds great promise for\nother types of objects as well. Here we present a comprehensive catalog of\neclipsing binary stars observed by Kepler in the first 44 days of operation,\nthe data which are publicly available through MAST as of 6/15/2010. The catalog\ncontains 1879 unique objects. For each object we provide its Kepler ID (KID),\nephemeris (BJD0, P0), morphology type, physical parameters (Teff, log g,\nE(B-V), crowding), and principal parameters (T2/T1, q, fillout factor and sin i\nfor overcontacts, and T2/T1, (R1+R2)/a, e sin(w), e cos(w), and sin i for\ndetached binaries). We present statistics based on the determined periods and\nmeasure an average occurence rate of eclipsing binaries to be ~1.2% across the\nKepler field. We further discuss the distribution of binaries as function of\ngalactic latitude, and thoroughly explain the application of artificial\nintelligence to obtain principal parameters in a matter of seconds for the\nwhole sample. The catalog was envisioned to serve as a bridge between the now\npublic Kepler data and the scientific community interested in eclipsing binary\nstars.\n