ELISa: A new tool for fast modelling of eclipsing binaries

TL;DR

ELISa is a Python-based tool that efficiently models eclipsing binary systems' light and radial velocity curves, balancing speed and accuracy for observational data analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a fast, modular, and user-friendly software with novel surface modeling and optimization techniques for eclipsing binary analysis.

Findings

ELISa achieves significant reduction in computational time.

It maintains acceptable accuracy for ground and space observations.

The tool effectively combines Roche geometry with advanced optimization methods.

Abstract

We present a new, fast, and easy to use tool for modelling light and radial velocity curves of close eclipsing binaries with built-in methods for solving an inverse problem. The main goal of ELISa (Eclipsing binary Learning and Interactive System) is to provide an acceptable compromise between computational speed and precision during the fitting of light curves and radial velocities of eclipsing binaries. The package is entirely written in the Python programming language in a modular fashion, making it easy to install, modify, and run on various operating systems. ELISa implements Roche geometry and the triangulation process to model a surface of the eclipsing binary components, where the surface parameters of each surface element are treated separately. Surface symmetries and approximations based on the similarity between surface geometries were used to reduce the runtime during light curve calculation significantly. ELISa implements the least square trust region reflective algorithm and Markov-chain Monte Carlo optimisation methods to provide the built-in capability to determine parameters of the binary system from photometric observations and radial velocities. The precision and speed of the light curve generator were evaluated using various benchmarks. We conclude that ELISa maintains an acceptable level of accuracy to analyse data from ground-based and space-based observations, and it provides a significant reduction in computational time compared to the current widely used tools for modelling eclipsing binaries.