Eclipsing binary stars in the era of massive surveys first results and future prospects

Abstract

Our thinking about eclipsing binary stars has undergone a tremendous change in the last decade. Eclipsing binary stars are one of nature's best laboratories for determining the fundamental physical properties of stars and thus for testing the predictions of theoretical models. Some of the largest ongoing variable star surveys include the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey (CRTS) and the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea survey (VVV). They both contain a large amount of photometric data and plenty of information about eclipsing binaries that wait to be extracted and exploited. Here we briefly describe our efforts in this direction....