Introducing adapted Nelder & Mead's downhill simplex method to a fully automated analysis of eclipsing binaries

Abstract

Eclipsing binaries are extremely attractive objects because absolute physical parameters (masses, luminosities, radii) of both components may be determined from observations. Since most efforts to extract these parameters were based on dedicated observing programs, existing modeling code is based on interactivity. Gaia will make a revolutionary advance in shear number of observed eclipsing binaries and new methods for automatic handling must be introduced and thoroughly tested. This paper focuses on Nelder & Mead's downhill simplex method applied to a synthetically created test binary as it will be observed by Gaia.