Building and Calibrating the Binary Star Population Using Kepler Data
  Modeling binary star populations is critical to linking the theories of star
formation and stellar evolution with observations. In order to test these
theories, we need accurate models of observable binary populations. The Kepler
Eclipsing Binary Catalog (KEBC), with its estimated $>$90% completeness,
provides an observational anchor on binary population models. In this work we
present the results of a new forward-model of the binary star population in the
Kepler field. The forward-model takes a single star population from a model of
the galaxy and pairs the stars into binaries by applying the constraints on the
population from the results of observational binary population surveys such as
arXiv:1007.0414 and arXiv:1303.3028. A synthetic binary population is
constructed from the initial distributions of orbital parameters. We identify
the eclipsing binary sample from the generated binary star population and
compare this with the observed sample of eclipsing binaries contained in the
KEBC. Finally, we update the distributions of the synthetic population and
repeat the process until the synthetic eclipsing binary sample agrees with the
KEBC. The end result of this process is a model of the underlying binary star
population that has been fit to observations. We find that for fixed flat mass
ratio and eccentricity input distributions, the binary period distribution is
logarithmically flat above $\sim$3.2d. With additional constraints on
distributions from observations, we can further adjust the synthetic binary
population by relaxing other input constraints, such as mass ratio and
eccentricity.
