COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF NUMERICAL METHODS OF DETERMINATION OF PARAMETERS OF BINARY STARS. CASE OF SPHERICAL COMPONENTS

Abstract

We discuss methods for modeling eclipsing binary stars. There are few realizations of the Wilson- Devinney (1971) code and its improvements, e.g. “Binary Makef’, “Phoebe”. A parameter search using the Monte- Carlo method was realized by Zola et al. (2010), which is efficient in expense of too many evaluations of the test func­tion. We compare existing algorithms of minimization of multi-parametric functions. To study methods, we adopt a simplified model of an eclipsing binary at a circular orbit assuming spherical components with an uniform brightness distribution. This model resembles more advanced models in a sense of correlated parameter estimates due to a similar topology of the test function. Such a model may be applied to detached Algol-type systems, where the tidal distortion of components is negligible.

Keywords

• variable stars
• eclipsing binaries
• algols
• data analysis
• time series analysis
• parameter determination