Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: The problem of efficiently computing the orbital elements of a visual binary while still deriving confidence intervals with frequentist properties is treated. When formulated in terms of the Thiele-Innes elements, the known distribution of probability in Thiele-Innes space allows efficient grid-search plus Monte-Carlo-sampling schemes to be constructed for both the minimum-χ2 and the Bayesian approaches to parameter estimation. Numerical experiments with 104 independent realizations of an observed orbit confirm that the 1 − and 2σ confidence and credibility intervals have coverage fractions close to their frequentist values.
Source: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Author: L. B. Lucy
Institution: Imperial College London
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W1967182757