Eclipsing binary stars in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds from the MACHO project: The Sample

TL;DR

This paper presents extensive new samples of eclipsing binary stars in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds from the MACHO project, enabling detailed statistical analysis of their populations.

Contribution

It provides the largest and most complete samples of eclipsing binaries in the Magellanic Clouds, including cross-matched data with OGLE-II, facilitating population studies.

Findings

Large samples of 4634 LMC and 1509 SMC eclipsing binaries.

High cross-matching success with OGLE-II data.

Minor differences between central and peripheral LMC populations.

Abstract

We present a new sample of 4634 eclipsing binary stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), expanding on a previous sample of 611 objects and a new sample of 1509 eclipsing binary stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), that were identified in the light curve database of the MACHO project. We perform a cross correlation with the OGLE-II LMC sample, finding 1236 matches. A cross correlation with the OGLE-II SMC sample finds 698 matches. We then compare the LMC subsamples corresponding to center and the periphery of the LMC and find only minor differences between the two populations. These samples are sufficiently large and complete that statistical studies of the binary star populations are possible.