A catalog of new eclipsing binaries in the Kepler database

Abstract

In this thesis, we present a catalog of binary stars discovered in the publicly available Kepler database, none of which were included in previous such catalogs published by the Kepler science team. A brief review of other binary star catalogs is given, including the Prs̆a et al. catalog on which we are expanding. We detail the means by which the Kepler data were downloaded and reduced to produce light curves, and we explain the FFT selection algorithm and visual inspections which were used to find new candidates for binary systems. Finally, the classifications by which these candidates were sorted are explained in full, and the binary catalog itself is presented as Appendix A. In all, we found 173 new binary systems not listed in the Kepler team's binary catalog of 2,176 systems. We were also able to successfully find ~1,400 of the 2,074 binary stars which the Kepler team had identified and which were available in the public Kepler data release, thereby providing some indication of the efficiency of our search. Further appendices list RR Lyrae type stars found during the research and peculiar objects of interest which may merit further study.