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Title: CLASSIFICATION OF STELLAR SPECTRA WITH LOCAL LINEAR EMBEDDING

Journal Article · · Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online)
; ;  [1]; ;  [2]
  1. Astronomy Department, University of Washington, Box 351580, U.W. Seattle, WA 98195-1580 (United States)
  2. School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (United States)

We investigate the use of dimensionality reduction techniques for the classification of stellar spectra selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Using local linear embedding (LLE), a technique that preserves the local (and possibly nonlinear) structure within high-dimensional data sets, we show that the majority of stellar spectra can be represented as a one-dimensional sequence within a three-dimensional space. The position along this sequence is highly correlated with spectral temperature. Deviations from this 'stellar locus' are indicative of spectra with strong emission lines (including misclassified galaxies) or broad absorption lines (e.g., carbon stars). Based on this analysis, we propose a hierarchical classification scheme using LLE that progressively identifies and classifies stellar spectra in a manner that requires no feature extraction and that can reproduce the classic MK classifications to an accuracy of one type.

OSTI ID:
22034327
Journal Information:
Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online), Vol. 142, Issue 6; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1538-3881
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English