950 research outputs found
Modeling lightcurves for improved classification of astronomical objects
Many synoptic surveys are observing large parts of the sky multiple times. The resulting time series of light measurements, called lightcurves, provide a wonderful window to the dynamic nature of the Universe. However, there are many significant challenges in analyzing these lightcurves. We describe a modeling-based approach using Gaussian process regression for generating critical measures for the classification of such lightcurves. This method has key advantages over other popular nonparametric regression methods in its ability to deal with censoring, a mixture of sparsely and densely sampled curves, the presence of annual gaps caused by objects not being visible throughout the year from a given position on Earth and known but variable measurement errors. We demonstrate that our approach performs better by showing it has a higher correct classification rate than past methods popular in astronomy. Finally, we provide future directions for use in sky-surveys that are getting even bigger by the day
Expected Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Yield of Eclipsing Binary Stars
In this paper we estimate the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) yield of
eclipsing binary stars, which will survey ~20,000 square degrees of the
southern sky during the period of 10 years in 6 photometric passbands to r ~
24.5. We generate a set of 10,000 eclipsing binary light curves sampled to the
LSST time cadence across the whole sky, with added noise as a function of
apparent magnitude. This set is passed to the Analysis of Variance (AoV) period
finder to assess the recoverability rate for the periods, and the successfully
phased light curves are passed to the artificial intelligence-based pipeline
EBAI to assess the recoverability rate in terms of the eclipsing binaries'
physical and geometric parameters. We find that, out of ~24 million eclipsing
binaries observed by LSST with S/N>10 in mission life-time, ~28% or 6.7 million
can be fully characterized by the pipeline. Of those, ~25% or 1.7 million will
be double-lined binaries, a true treasure trove for stellar astrophysics.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures. Accepted to AJ, to appear in issue 142:2 (Aug
2011
New Horizons: Long-Range Kuiper Belt Targets Observed by the Hubble Space Telescope
We report on Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of three Kuiper Belt
Objects (KBOs), discovered in our dedicated ground-based search campaign, that
are candidates for long-range observations from the New Horizons spacecraft:
2011 JY31, 2011 HZ102, and 2013 LU35. Astrometry with HST enables both current
and future critical accuracy improvements for orbit precision, required for
possible New Horizons observations, beyond what can be obtained from the
ground. Photometric colors of all three objects are red, typical of the Cold
Classical dynamical population within which they reside; they are also the
faintest KBOs to have had their colors measured. None are observed to be binary
with HST above separations of ~0.02 arcsec (~700 km at 44 AU) and {\Delta}m
less than or equal to 0.5.Comment: Pages: 11, Figures: 2, Tables: 3, Icarus, available online May 2014
(http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2014.04.014
Asteroid lightcurves from the Palomar Transient Factory survey: Rotation periods and phase functions from sparse photometry
We fit 54,296 sparsely-sampled asteroid lightcurves in the Palomar Transient
Factory to a combined rotation plus phase-function model. Each lightcurve
consists of 20+ observations acquired in a single opposition. Using 805
asteroids in our sample that have reference periods in the literature, we find
the reliability of our fitted periods is a complicated function of the period,
amplitude, apparent magnitude and other attributes. Using the 805-asteroid
ground-truth sample, we train an automated classifier to estimate (along with
manual inspection) the validity of the remaining 53,000 fitted periods. By this
method we find 9,033 of our lightcurves (of 8,300 unique asteroids) have
reliable periods. Subsequent consideration of asteroids with multiple
lightcurve fits indicate 4% contamination in these reliable periods. For 3,902
lightcurves with sufficient phase-angle coverage and either a reliably-fit
period or low amplitude, we examine the distribution of several phase-function
parameters, none of which are bimodal though all correlate with the bond albedo
and with visible-band colors. Comparing the theoretical maximal spin rate of a
fluid body with our amplitude versus spin-rate distribution suggests that, if
held together only by self-gravity, most asteroids are in general less dense
than 2 g/cm, while C types have a lower limit of between 1 and 2 g/cm,
in agreement with previous density estimates. For 5-20km diameters, S types
rotate faster and have lower amplitudes than C types. If both populations share
the same angular momentum, this may indicate the two types' differing ability
to deform under rotational stress. Lastly, we compare our absolute magnitudes
and apparent-magnitude residuals to those of the Minor Planet Center's nominal
, rotation-neglecting model; our phase-function plus Fourier-series
fitting reduces asteroid photometric RMS scatter by a factor of 3.Comment: 35 pages, 29 figures. Accepted 15-Apr-2015 to The Astronomical
Journal (AJ). Supplementary material including ASCII data tables will be
available through the publishing journal's websit
The First Data Release from SweetSpot: 74 Supernovae in 36 Nights on WIYN+WHIRC
SweetSpot is a three-year National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO)
Survey program to observe Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) in the smooth Hubble flow
with the WIYN High-resolution Infrared Camera (WHIRC) on the WIYN 3.5-m
telescope. We here present data from the first half of this survey, covering
the 2011B-2013B NOAO semesters, and consisting of 493 calibrated images of 74
SNe Ia observed in the rest-frame near-infrared (NIR) from .
Because many observed supernovae require host galaxy subtraction from templates
taken in later semesters, this release contains only the 186 NIR () data
points for the 33 SNe Ia that do not require host-galaxy subtraction. The
sample includes 4 objects with coverage beginning before the epoch of B-band
maximum and 27 beginning within 20 days of B-band maximum. We also provide
photometric calibration between the WIYN+WHIRC and Two-Micron All Sky Survey
(2MASS) systems along with light curves for 786 2MASS stars observed alongside
the SNe Ia. This work is the first in a planned series of three SweetSpot Data
Releases. Future releases will include the full set of images from all 3 years
of the survey, including host-galaxy reference images and updated data
processing and host-galaxy reference subtraction. SweetSpot will provide a
well-calibrated sample that will help improve our ability to standardize
distance measurements to SNe Ia, examine the intrinsic optical-NIR colors of
SNe Ia at different epochs, explore nature of dust in other galaxies, and act
as a stepping stone for more distant, potentially space-based surveys.Comment: Published in AJ. 10 tables. 11 figures. Lightcurve plots included as
a figureset and available in source tarball. Data online at
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~wmwv/SweetSpot/DR1_data
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