Avocado: Photometric Classification of Astronomical Transients with Gaussian Process Augmentation
Abstract
Upcoming astronomical surveys such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will rely on photometric classification to identify the majority of the transients and variables that they discover. We present a set of techniques for photometric classification that can be applied even when the training set of spectroscopically confirmed objects is heavily biased toward bright, low-redshift objects. Using Gaussian process regression to model arbitrary light curves in all bands simultaneously, we "augment" the training set by generating new versions of the original light curves covering a range of redshifts and observing conditions. We train a boosted decision tree classifier on features extracted from the augmented light curves, and we show how such a classifier can be designed to produce classifications that are independent of the redshift distributions of objects in the training sample. Our classification algorithm was the best-performing among the 1094 models considered in the blinded phase of the Photometric LSST Astronomical Time-Series Classification Challenge, scoring 0.468 on the organizers' logarithmic-loss metric with flat weights for all object classes in the training set, and achieving an AUC of 0.957 for classification of SNe Ia. Furthermore, our results suggest that spectroscopic campaigns used for training photometric classifiers should focus onmore »
- Authors:
-
[1]
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1593890
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0009924
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- The Astronomical Journal (Online)
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: The Astronomical Journal (Online); Journal Volume: 158; Journal Issue: 6; Journal ID: ISSN 1538-3881
- Publisher:
- IOP Publishing - AAAS
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; photometric classification; LSST; transients; supernovae
Citation Formats
Boone, Kyle. Avocado: Photometric Classification of Astronomical Transients with Gaussian Process Augmentation. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.3847/1538-3881/ab5182.
Boone, Kyle. Avocado: Photometric Classification of Astronomical Transients with Gaussian Process Augmentation. United States. doi:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ab5182
Boone, Kyle. Wed .
"Avocado: Photometric Classification of Astronomical Transients with Gaussian Process Augmentation". United States. doi:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ab5182. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1593890.
@article{osti_1593890,
title = {Avocado: Photometric Classification of Astronomical Transients with Gaussian Process Augmentation},
author = {Boone, Kyle},
abstractNote = {Upcoming astronomical surveys such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will rely on photometric classification to identify the majority of the transients and variables that they discover. We present a set of techniques for photometric classification that can be applied even when the training set of spectroscopically confirmed objects is heavily biased toward bright, low-redshift objects. Using Gaussian process regression to model arbitrary light curves in all bands simultaneously, we "augment" the training set by generating new versions of the original light curves covering a range of redshifts and observing conditions. We train a boosted decision tree classifier on features extracted from the augmented light curves, and we show how such a classifier can be designed to produce classifications that are independent of the redshift distributions of objects in the training sample. Our classification algorithm was the best-performing among the 1094 models considered in the blinded phase of the Photometric LSST Astronomical Time-Series Classification Challenge, scoring 0.468 on the organizers' logarithmic-loss metric with flat weights for all object classes in the training set, and achieving an AUC of 0.957 for classification of SNe Ia. Furthermore, our results suggest that spectroscopic campaigns used for training photometric classifiers should focus on typing large numbers of well-observed, intermediate-redshift transients, instead of attempting to type a sample of transients that is directly representative of the full data set being classified.},
doi = {10.3847/1538-3881/ab5182},
journal = {The Astronomical Journal (Online)},
number = 6,
volume = 158,
place = {United States},
year = {2019},
month = {12}
}
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