PySeshat: A Validated Python Pipeline for Binary-Star Orbit Determination and Al-Wardat Stellar Atmosphere Modeling
astro-ph.SR, astro-ph.IM
Submitted: 2026-09-06
Updated: 2026-09-06
Comments: 19 pages, 13 figures, 4 tables, 1 appendix, submitted to A&A
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The gist: Precise stellar masses and physical parameters for binary and multiple star systems require, respectively, well-constrained orbital solutions and independent stellar-atmosphere modeling.
Terminology
Abstract
Precise stellar masses and physical parameters for binary and multiple star systems require, respectively, well-constrained orbital solutions and independent stellar-atmosphere modeling. Existing open-source software addresses these separately, and hierarchical triple systems additionally require simultaneous fitting of their inner and outer orbits, a treatment few existing tools provide. We present PySeshat, an open-source Python package unifying binary and hierarchical-triple orbit determination with stellar SED fitting in a single, validated pipeline. The package fits visual, spectroscopic, and combined binary orbits by least-squares, and hierarchical-triple orbits through two parallel formalisms, one of which fits both inner and outer orbits simultaneously rather than sequentially. Both share a common Bayesian posterior-sampling layer. A second module fits two-component synthetic spectra to a binary's combined, unresolved photometry to recover each component's temperature and radius. The software was validated against twelve real, published benchmark systems, cross-checked against three independent orbit-fitting packages and real space-telescope archive data. All twelve benchmark systems reach fit quality consistent with their published solutions. Comparing the simultaneous and sequential triple-fitting formalisms on the same real systems shows the simultaneous approach is not merely preferable but necessary: one system's orbital configuration cannot be represented by the sequential formalism at all. Fitting four independently published systems' photometry reveals a degeneracy in recovering individual temperatures for near-twin-temperature stellar components from unresolved light, independent of how much photometric data is available. The package provides a validated, open, and extensible pipeline for binary and multiple star system analysis, publicly released and freely installable.
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