Abstract
Whereas deriving the orbit of a binary star was perceived as a tedious task even during the second half of the 20th century, nowadays, computers can investigate millions of solutions and keep the best one in just a few seconds. However, even if one is very careful in defining what best means (e.g. least-squares sense), the nonlinearity of the model can be very misleading, thus possibly yielding some solutions which are numerically valid but physically rather unlikely. With this paper, we aim at warning the fitters about the potential inadequacy of the methods they use to assess their solutions. Indeed, the problem is neither in the model nor in the fitting method but rather in the often overlooked assumptions of some statistical tools.
Author
Pourbaix, D.
Journal
Proceedings of the workshop “Orbital Couples: Pas de Deux in the Solar System and the Milky Way”.
Paper Publication Date
May 2012
Paper Type
Astrostatistics