Masses and radii of eclipsing binaries

This explicitly model-dependent approach is based on readily available observations, and results in small formal errors. Its performance will be central to the reliability of results from ground-based transit surveys such as TrES, HAT, and SuperWASP, as well as to the space-borne missions MOST, CoRoT, and Kepler.

Here, I use two calibration samples of stars (eclipsing binaries (EBs) and stars for which asteroseismic analyses are available) having well-determined masses and radii to estimate the accuracy and systematic errors inherent in the {rho}_*_ method. When matching to the Yonsei-Yale stellar evolution models, I find the most important systematic error results from selection bias favoring rapidly rotating (hence probably magnetically active) stars among the EB sample.