Kepler Eclipsing Binary Stars. I. Catalog and Principal Characterization of 1879 Eclipsing Binaries in the First Data Release

The Kepler space mission is devoted to finding Earth-size planets in habitable zones orbiting other stars. Its large, 105-deg field-of-view features over 156,000 stars that are observed continuously to detect and characterize planet transits. Yet this high-precision instrument holds great promise for other types of objects as well. Here we present a comprehensive catalog of eclipsing binary stars observed by Kepler in the first 44 days of operation, the data which are publicly available through MAST as of 6/15/2010. The catalog contains 1879 unique objects. For each object we provide its Kepler ID (KID), ephemeris (BJD0, P0), morphology type, physical parameters (Teff, log g, E(B-V), crowding), and principal parameters (T2/T1, q, fillout factor and sin i for overcontacts, and T2/T1, (R1+R2)/a, e sin(w), e cos(w), and sin i for detached binaries). We present statistics based on the determined periods and measure an average occurence rate of eclipsing binaries to be ~1.2% across the Kepler field. We further discuss the distribution of binaries as function of galactic latitude, and thoroughly explain the application of artificial intelligence to obtain principal parameters in a matter of seconds for the whole sample. The catalog was envisioned to serve as a bridge between the now public Kepler data and the scientific community interested in eclipsing binary stars.