Binary populations: what have we learned from Kepler and K2?
Andrej Prsa (Villanova University)

The original Kepler mission (Borucki et al. 2011) provided us with an unprecedented look into the statistical properties of EBs: the satellite's original field of view contains some 2800 close binaries for which we have 4 years of essentially uninterrupted data with unparalleled photometric precision (Kirk et al. 2016). This data-set allowed us to derive fundamental parameter distributions and multiplicity rates of EBs across the field (Pr¨a et al. 2011, Conroy et al. 2014a, Kirk et al. 2016). The Kepler EB catalog (http://keplerEBs.villanova.edu) represents the most complete census of close eclipsing binaries that is available to date. The crucial advantage of K2 over the original Kepler mission is the survey of the ecliptic. That implies probing inherently different stellar populations since the ecliptic spans galactic latitudes between -70-deg and 70-deg. These parts (the bulge, thick disk, thin disk, halo) feature distinct stellar populations, and understanding the properties of those populations is an ongoing effort. Studying these properties relies on reliable fundamental parameters of stars: their masses, radii, temperatures and luminosities. Eclipsing binary stars lend themselves naturally to this task, since their favorable geometrical orientation and basic laws of gravity enable us to determine fundamental parameters to a ~1% accuracy. In this review talk I will present what we learned from studying binaries with Kepler and K2, and look to TESS to fill in the blanks in our coverage of the bright end.