Fourier analysis of the light curves of eclipsing variables,I

The aim of the present paper will be to pioneer a new approach to the analysis of the light changes of eclipsing binary systems in the frequency domain, and to point out its merits in comparison with a conventional treatment of the same problem in the time-domain which has been developed so far. Following an introductory section in which the broad features of our problem will be set forth, Section 2 will contain an outline, and critique, of the time-domain approach. Section 3 will give an explicit treatment of the light changes arising from total and annular eclipses in the frequency domain — a problem which we succeeded in solving in close algebraic form. Section 4 will extend this treatment to the case of partial eclipses; and in the concluding Section 5 the relative merits of our new results will be discussed in broader perspective. Sections 3 and 4 contain explicit results pertaining to mutual eclipses of spherical stars exhibiting uniformly bright discs. An extension of these results to the case of arbitrary limb-darkening, and taking account of mutual distortion of both components, will be given in subsequent communications.